The Golden Flask ps-3

by Jim DeFelice

  variety of items, including a very fine carriage.

  "What a coincidence. I was planning to work on that transaction tomorrow," said van Clynne.

  "That would be very good — I could use the thirty crowns, believe me."

  Van Clynne ignored the note of sarcasm in the colonel's voice. In actual fact, the wagon had fetched forty crowns at Half Moon some weeks before, just

  before the Dutchman ventured north to assist Jake in his dealings with the Mohawk. But such a large interval had transpired in the meantime that his memory of the details of the business had faded.

  Or so he would claim if pressed. For the moment he frowned, allowing as how there was a great shortage of money and an oversupply of wagons, which made achieving a favorable price difficult. Perhaps, he hinted, his usual broker’s fees could be boosted as an incentive to a deal.

  "I doubt that," said Flanagan. "We have a contract. Your word is your bond, you said."

  "As it remains, stronger than any rope. Indeed, stronger than the chain across the Hudson — which I saved, by the by, and which I am due to, er, inspect directly."

  Flanagan caught van Clynne's cuff as he attempted to retreat. "I saw a carriage that looked very similar to mine in town just the other day. Another coincidence?"

  "As I said, there is quite an oversupply." Van Clynne looked eagerly for a diversion. He saw one in the person of a servant who entered the room carrying a tray of Port. "Here we are, Colonel. Something to drink?"

  "No."

  "Of course, you are a beer man. As am I, in fact. Indeed, I had set out in search of some ale when you bumped into me. Here. ." He called over to the servant. "Two cups of your finest ale. Wait — better make it porter; my friend and I have just been discussing some stout business."

  "Excuse me, sir, but I am serving the wine."

  "Just so," said van Clynne, "but it is a venial offense and I won't hold it against you. Hurry now; the colonel is a military man and has many important things to attend to."

  As the waiter retreated, van Clynne took a step to follow.

  "Hold it, Claus." Flanagan extended an arm and hooked his finger in a buttonhole on the Dutchman's vest.

  "I promise to give the carriage my top priority."

  "There is another matter I'd like to discuss. General Schuyler told me you have recently been among the Mohawk. I would like to know their strength and plans."

  "Yes, the Maquas." Van Clynne frowned, running his eye up and down Flanagan's dark blue uniform. Undoubtedly, Flanagan was merely making a pretext, planning a return to the obnoxious topic of his wagon as soon as possible. "My friend Mr. Gibbs would do better to fill you in. He was gathering intelligence, while I served primarily as facilitator and interpreter. The interviews were not all together pleasant, as I'm sure he will tell you with his usual flair."

  "Jake left a short while ago," said Flanagan. "And you're here now."

  "Where did he go?" demanded Sarah Thomas, who had been silently observing their conversation.

  "I'm sorry, Miss Thomas, but I saw him leave the room a short while ago," said Flanagan.

  Tears welled in Sarah's eyes as anger flushed her cheeks. "He's gone to see Betsy I'll bet. She claimed to have a headache and went upstairs."

  Flanagan had a daughter about Sarah's age and well understood her consternation. "I saw him go outside with another officer," he explained. "Not with Betsy."

  "Colonel Hamilton?"

  The words were scarcely out of Sarah's mouth when van Clynne began to bluster. "Hamilton?" he demanded. "Alexander Hamilton? Are we speaking of the young officer who handles much of His Excellency General Washington's correspondence? A man at Washington's beck and call every hour of the day?"

  Before Flanagan or Sarah could answer, van Clynne was asking which door they had taken and throwing himself hastily in that direction. The Dutchman ran into the hallway, seeking out his friend with loud entreaties and a sprinkling of even louder curses.

  A personal meeting with General Washington had always been a prominent feature of van Clynne's strategy to win back the rights to his property — and here was his chance to arrange one. Surely Jake would tell Hamilton that the Dutchman's plea was a righteous one. Surely the young aide would escort him directly to the general.

  But they were nowhere to be found. The landless squire expended a considerable portion of complaints and not a little wheezing before he discovered a stable-hand who had seen them and their mounts head south from the estate. With a great shout, van Clynne realized Dame Opportunity was about to slip off his doorstep.

  Not if he could help it. Nor did van Clynne let the fact that the man had only a hazy notion of where the two were going delay him. He trusted to his wits and Fate to reunite them, ere Jake met the general.

  Assuming he set off right away.

  "A horse, a horse!" he demanded. "My land for a horse."

  What Shakespeare might have thought of this plagiarism will not be recorded here. A horse was produced nearly as quickly as the gold from one of the Dutchman's four purses. He thundered into the night, pushing the beast with more fire than Paul Revere displayed the night of his famous tour of the Boston suburbs.

  Chapter Three

  Wherein, Jake and Colonel Hamilton make the acquaintance of several shady fellows.

  The cool night air and the rush of excitement at being summoned by General Washington invigorated Jake. He urged his horse southward with the enthusiasm of a boy released from school the day stripers start their river run. Hamilton was right beside him; the two men took advantage of the strong moon and clear night sky to thunder at full speed through the Hudson Valley hills. They reached the small settlement of Coxsackie, some twenty miles below Albany, in barely the time it would take to spell the name. The horses Hamilton had chosen were slender but sturdy beasts, identically colored — roan, with a single white daub at the left eye. Their muscled legs seemed capable of outrunning the wind.

  As fast as the horses strode, Jake's mind went quicker. He began to fear what might lie ahead. It was not fear for himself. Until presented with a specific danger, Jake Gibbs was not the type to dwell on contingencies. But he realized that the Revolution had reached a tremulous point. Already, there were rumblings of discontent in the army, and the chronic shortage of funds was becoming acute. While delegations had been sent abroad to seek foreign support, European powers such as France would not back a cause that appeared headed for defeat. Another major setback — the loss of Boston or Philadelphia, or even Albany-could easily end all hope of assistance.

  The area Jake and Hamilton rode through had been among the first visited by white men after the continent's fortunate discovery. The Dutch, including members of the van Clynne family, had made this land their own, exploring, farming, and trading for furs. It was still sparsely settled, however, for various reasons beginning with the geography. Hills and mountains rose up in jagged lines from the fiver; between them, all manner of ponds, creeks, and streams flowed in crazy-quilt patterns, now shimmering in the moonlight.

  A few miles south of Coxsackie, a stream crossed the roadway to mark a perfect X

  on the darkened landscape, and it was here that the two Continental officers stopped to refresh their horses and stretch their own arms and legs.

  The spot was idyllic, but the choice was unfortunate, for no sooner had the men slipped off the backs of their mounts than they were warned to stand away, with their hands held out at their sides.

  "You will do what I say, or I will kill you," said the voice sharply. "Identify yourselves."

  Jake, his barely healed wounds smarting from the bumping they'd been treated to on the ride, stretched his arms stiffly and studied the shadows. A man with a gun was standing to their right.

  "Excuse us, sir," said Hamilton brightly. "We are on our way to New Paltz."

  "No one travels at night on this road," said the man. Tall, he cast a wedged shadow forward from the woods. His accent was odd, though his words were perfect English. T
he intonation reminded Jake of the Iroquois, among whom he had just spent several harrowing weeks.

  "We are good patriots," answered Hamilton. His service as an artillery officer had not taught him the caution that was second nature to Jake. This was secure patriot country, after all, and his assumption that the men must be must be part of the local militia was logical. "I am Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hamilton, and this is my friend, Colonel Gibbs."

  "A pair of colonels," said another voice, this one to their left. There was no mistake about his accent — it was direct from one of London's cruder neighborhoods.

  Jake quickly surveyed the nearby woods, looking for a safe line of retreat. His only weapon was his Segallas pocket pistol secreted at his belt. And Hamilton's larger officer's pistol was snug in the holster on the side of his saddle on his horse.

  "If you've come to rob us," said Jake, "it will do you no good; we've got no money."

  "We're not interested in your money," said the man with the Indian accent, who seemed to be the other's leader. He took a step from the shadows.

  "Come now, friends, who is your commander?" said Hamilton, taking a step forward.

  Jake groaned. "Alexander," he said as he put his hand to his vest, "I believe my stomach is acting up."

  "As well it should," said the leader. "Bring up the light."

  A third and then a fourth man emerged from the shadows near the bushes, the last holding a candle lantern. Its flame was hardly enough for anyone to read by, but it gave Jake enough light to see there were no other reinforcements.

  "Gentlemen," he said, still feigning illness as he stepped forward, "I must speak to you alone."

  "That's an old trick," said the first man who had accosted them, standing to their right. The dim light illuminated white skin, but his forehead and cheek were tattooed with the unmistakable markings of an Iroquois warrior. His head was completely shaven, except for a scalp lock; tied with a large golden feather and brass ring, it hung down the side of his head to his shoulder. His clothes were a curious mixture of European and Indian dress. He wore a black, tailored jacket, but no shirt. A long red ceremonial slash cut a diagonal across his chest. His breeches were leather. In the darkness it was impossible to tell what, if anything, he wore on his feet.

  Jake had come across painted whites before. Some called them changelings, men who had been adopted or stolen as youngsters to live among the Indians and converted to their ways. Others called them renegades, race traitors, and worse.

  It was difficult to generalize about where such men's loyalties lay. But these had already given themselves away. Jake guessed the white Indian and his escorts must be messengers working between the British northern and southern frontiers; they were too far and too misplaced to be scouts.

  "This is not a trick," said Jake. He had used his feigned stomach ailment to put the Segallas into his hand, and now contemplated how best to use its store of bullets. "The name I have used until now is false, a fiction to make travel among these rebels safer. I am Major Doctor Keen, assigned to General Bacon's intelligence service. I am on my way to our lines with valuable information."

  Keen's name was unfamiliar to them, but the mention of Black Clay was enough to give the quartet pause. Bacon ran the British intelligence service headquartered in New York City under General Howe. They were ostensibly if indirectly under his command.

  He was also a man who must not be crossed in the least way. The Englishmen took a step backward, nearly as a group.

  The tattooed man was not impressed. He spat on the ground.

  "Egans, let us examine him," suggested the Londoner. "He should bear a token if he is a messenger."

  "I did not say I was a messenger," answered Jake, working his way slowly toward the man with the candle lantern. He tried to use the same haughty tone Keen would have used. The spy felt safe in usurping Keen’s identity well as his voice, as he had watched the doctor sink to the bottom of the Mohawk River a week before.

  "What are you then?" demanded Egans. Jake's guess about the man's origins was correct — he was an adopted member of the Oneida nation, among whom he had proven his worth and earned the name of a warrior some years before.

  "I would not talk to one who pretends to be an Iroquois," said Jake, as savagely as if his mother had been accused of being a whore. The white Indian at first did not react, but his anger quickly grew as Jake began to rattle off a series of curses in pidgin Huron. While these ill-pronounced words represented all he knew of the tongue, still they were of sufficient slander to accomplish Jake's purpose. No matter that the stress and accent were wrong; the hate for the Huron nation's eternal enemies, eaters of people and robbers of skins, was perfectly clear.

  "I have spent many weeks among the Huron," Jake told the Englishmen as they strained to hold back the infuriated Egans. He embellished his preposterous tale with a boldness that made it sound plausible. "Working on an alliance. You will help take me to Howe."

  "What about him?" said the candle-holder, gesturing toward Hamilton.

  "Oh, he's just a convenient rebel," said Jake, walking to him. "We shall take him along as ransom. I doubt he's really a colonel, though," he added. "I should be surprised if he's even a captain."

  Hamilton might have objected at this demotion, but he was too busy flying to the ground. This sudden action was dictated by Jake's shout as he upturned the lantern into its bearer's face. In the next instant, he fired the Segallas at the next closest Englishman.

  Jake's finger inadvertently nudged both of the gun's small triggers, and thus two poisoned bullets instead of one struck the man in the chest. Cursing, Jake dove at the last Briton, whose pistol discharged as they tumbled backwards.

  Egans took a step backward, calmly drawing back the lock on his musket. He caught the bare outline of Hamilton springing to his feet and fired in the young officer's direction, ducking as a projectile flew at him. The missile was a medium-sized rock, which missed Egans's head by a half-foot. Fortunately, his bullet missed Hamilton by the same margin.

  Jake and the Englishman fell together into the stream, the Segallas dropping by the wayside. The patriot had just spotted a jagged rock to thrash his man's head against when he felt his leg warm considerably. This sensation was followed by a strong, sharp poke, which the patriot spy recognized only too well — his enemy was endeavoring to stitch his name on Jake's leg, if not his abdomen, with a small but still considerably sharp knife.

  The Englishman's head was thrust three times on the stone, each time harder than before, so that with the third blow his brains burst in a gruesome mess from the skull. Jake jumped to his feet as the man's ghost ran from him.

  The patriot had just enough time to duck as the candle-bearer charged straight at him. The maneuver sent the man flying face-first into the stream. It also brought Jake within reach of the dead man's discarded knife, which he appropriated before wading after his prey.

  While his first approach had ended in a comic flip, the Englishman aimed quickly to redeem himself. He had equipped himself with a hatchet, and took two quick swipes at Jake to halt his advance. Knee-deep in water, the two men faced each other in the moonlight oblivious to all else around them.

  Hamilton, meanwhile, had managed to take a few strides for his horse, where his pistol sat waiting. Egans got there first, shoving him aside and grabbing at the saddle holster for the gun. Though of average height, Hamilton could extend himself when enraged, and he was rarely so hot as he was now. He flew headlong at the man, knocking the gun from his hand just as the lock was pulled back. The woods exploded with the misfired shot, but neither Hamilton nor the adopted Oneida was injured. Egans slipped and the pair rolled in the mud beneath the animals' hooves, the horses pulling and yanking at their tied reins.

  Fury aside, Egans was more than a match for Hamilton. But Hamilton was persistent. They continued to grapple together, until the white Oneida spotted the fallen pistol a short distance away. Then began a desperate game of leapfrog, each man trying to reach
the weapon first.

  Meanwhile, Jake and his opponent thrashed back and forth on the creek bed. Twice the American took a feint with his knife, falling back under the weight of a vicious flail from the Englishman's ax. On his third try, Jake's luck seemed to run out — he slipped on the muck and fell backwards in a tumble. In the next instant, the Englishman fell upon him, hand curled back with the heavy hatchet.

  The weapon fell aside harmlessly. Jake had employed a simple ruse to take his enemy off his guard, plunging his knife full into his stomach as he charged. He held the hilt firmly as the man first pushed then pulled, triumphant charge turned to desperate retreat.

  On his knees in the water, Jake levered the blade through the man's organs, holding him tight with his left hand. No lover's grasp was as sturdy as this death grip; by the time he let the man collapse backwards into the moonlit water, his soul had long since escaped its earthly bounds.

  And now Jake turned his attention to the shore where Hamilton was deep into his own hard struggle. Egans's superior skill and strength were showing; he managed to grab the pistol from the dirt and brought it back in a crash across Hamilton's head.

  Jake scooped up his Segallas and spun its barrels to fire, but both bullets whizzed wide of his mark. Oblivious, the white Oneida pulled Hamilton's empty pistol back for a second blow as a hammer when Jake crashed into his back. Knocked to the ground, Egans managed to tumble around and spring to his feet, and Jake found himself staring down the barrel of a gun.

  It took a moment for him to realize the weapon had already been fired. By that time, Jake was diving to his right, out of aim. The Indian smiled brightly and leapt to the nearby horse.

  Jake took a step to give chase, but Hamilton caught him by the shirttail.

  "Our mission is too important to risk following him," he said between winded puffs for air. "We've already lost too much time."

  "That's quite a little pistol you have there," said Hamilton when he had caught his breath. "It fires four shots?"