by James McGee
Hawkwood had borrowed the decoy trick from the Spanish guerrilleros and had kept one warrior – Effa – with two long guns, the second taken from one of the dead soldiers, concealed on the side of the road opposite his main ambush force. At a given signal – in this instance, Tewanias’s bird call – the decoy had opened fire, drawing the enemy’s attention, causing them to turn and leave their backs exposed, perfect targets for Hawkwood and the warriors who were lying in wait behind them.
The trap sprung, the first Mohawk shooters had immediately shifted positions, but by this time the troopers, realizing they’d been duped, were returning shots, aiming at the dissipating powder bursts. The forest resounded with the sound of gunfire. Smoke clouds swirled along the edge of the road. Musket balls whined and ricocheted through the trees, thudding into trunks and shredding leaves.
The third group fired. Hawkwood did not look for the outcome but braced himself against a tree, took aim on a trooper and squeezed the trigger. The trooper dropped. Moving quickly to his new stand, Hawkwood withdrew a fresh cartridge from his pocket, bit into it and felt a tug on his arm as a musket ball caught the sleeve of his coat.
Where the hell are you, Quade?
The answer came as the forest to the rear of Hawkwood’s position erupted in a crescendo of flame and smoke. Hawkwood pivoted, feeling the pressure of air against his skin as another ball thrummed past his right cheek and thudded into the tree beside him. He saw a warrior – it might have been Niah – jerk and spin away, his black-painted features misting red as a ball exited his skull.
Quade! You clever bastard!
The major, it seemed, had laid a trap of his own.
Sensing that another ambush was a distinct possibility, Quade, using what was left of the fog as cover, must have dispatched men across the creek somewhere downstream; at which point, all they’d had to do was wait until the ambush party gave away its position. It explained the overt nervousness of the two mounted officers, who’d known their assignment had been to draw the enemy’s fire.
Hawkwood spat the ball into the barrel of his musket and ducked as a fresh broadside, this time from the road, ripped into the trees around him. A cry came from his left as another of Tewanias’s warriors – Alak – fell back, venting blood as a ball tore through his throat. Withering fire was now coming from two sides.
Cursing, Hawkwood tapped the butt of the musket against the ground to seat the ball and was about to swing the weapon up when a hand touched his shoulder. He heard Tewanias’s voice in his ear. “Hatskwi! We must move, now!”
Hawkwood took stock. It was hard to see how many uniformed shapes were advancing as the smoke through which they were moving was almost as impenetrable as the fog that had gone before, but it was safe to assume that Quade would have calculated the number of ambushers from the shots fired and deployed his men accordingly; in other words, in a significant number.
Quade’s mistake had been in failing to prevent his front rank from firing too soon.
A musket could propel a ball more than two hundred and fifty yards, but its effective range was only eighty or ninety at best. Judging by the location of the smoke, the troopers were beyond that. If they’d had the patience to hold their fire for another thirty paces, their surprise would have been complete. As it was, in their haste to engage, instead of cutting off an escape route, they had, inadvertently, provided one, by virtue of the fact it would take them some time to reload, giving their quarry an extra few seconds.
As Tewanias signalled to his men to pull back, Hawkwood raised his musket again and looked for a final target, to keep the troopers’ heads down. Unable to get a clear shot at the soldiers in the wood, he turned back to the road, sighted on a corporal shaking powder into his pan, and fired. As the corporal fell away, his hand clutching his half-primed weapon, Cageaga clicked his tongue in satisfaction and then flinched as a ball smacked into a snow-laden bough inches from his feathered topknot. “Come, Mat-huwa! The smoke will hide us!”
From your lips to God’s ear, Hawkwood thought.
But either God wasn’t listening or He’d turned a deaf ear, because shouts went up the second they broke from cover, drowned instantly by the crash of musketry, much closer than before.
As he watched a warrior whose name he did not know spin away, it struck him that, in the furore, fewer shots had come from the column. With smoke hampering their aim, the troops on the road had been shooting mostly at shadows and while a couple of shots had found their mark – possibly more by accident than design – the majority had struck foliage. As a result they had clearly become worried about shooting their own men by mistake, a fear that was not reciprocated by the troops in the forest, who, from the noise that marked their positions, were spread out in a longer line than their first volley had suggested, and closing fast.
“There, Major! The bastards are running! See?”
Quade, sword in hand, followed his lieutenant’s pointing finger. His head was throbbing from the sound of the guns, for the soldiers were firing at will now and the air was heavy with the smell of burnt sulphur and saltpetre, so much so that his eyes had begun to water. His leg was beginning to ache like a bitch as well. But then a gap in the smoke allowed him to catch a glimpse of a shadowy form slipping between the trees ahead of him and his pulse quickened.
Relief surged within him, for there had been a moment, wading across the icy creek, when he’d wondered if his gamble to draw the ambushers into his trap would work. Now, with the enemy in disarray – and secure in the knowledge that they were indeed few in number – he was able to breathe once more. To judge from the exchange of fire between the ambushers and the troops in the column, the strategy had cost him a number of men, but their sacrifice had been for the greater good. With the ambush foiled, the advance could continue unhindered. Lacolle was only a short step away and victory remained within their grasp, though the element of surprise might well have been lost if the sound of the gunfire had reached the ears of the British. Quade tried not to think about that as he addressed the lieutenant at his side.
“Tell the sergeant to keep the men in open order. Extend the line. We must drive them towards the road. We will hem them in there.”
“Sir!”
A shot rang out close by. Quade turned to see a trooper bearing corporal’s stripes standing a few yards away, pointing his smoking musket at a crumpled form in a buckskin coat lying by his feet. There was a wound in the corpse’s belly, which had been leaking blood on to the snow, and a hole in the painted forehead.
Turning, the corporal caught Quade’s eye and grinned as he reached into his pack for another cartridge. “Don’t look so fierce now, Major, do they?”
Quade stared down at the mess that, only seconds before, had been a man’s face. It was unlikely, he thought, that anyone would look fierce with holes in the front and back of his skull, be they white man or Indian. He looked away as someone unleashed a shot at a fleeing shape and saw a scalp-locked figure throw up its arms and pitch forward.
Like ninepins! he thought, but turned back when he heard the corporal say, “Ah, Jesus,” in a mixture of anguish and disgust.
The corporal was nudging something away from the dead warrior’s belt with the muzzle of his gun. A bloody strip of skin with hair attached. The hair was sandy-coloured with streaks of grey running through it.
The corporal said bleakly, “I think it’s Sergeant Carmody, sir.”
Part of him, at any rate, Quade thought.
Carmody had been the sergeant in charge of the van, one of the soldiers who hadn’t made it back across the bridge.
“Murdering bastards,” the corporal muttered. He turned. “What should we do, Major?”
Quade assumed the corporal was referring to the scalp. It was on the tip of his tongue to reply that there was little they could do as the late Sergeant Carmody had no further need of his hair. Instead, he said, “We exterminate them, Corporal; as many as we can. That’s how you deal with vermin.”
As
he followed Tewanias’s weaving figure, Hawkwood counted the number of warriors running with them.
Some of Tewanias’s men had managed to lay down covering fire as they’d made their escape, but with the troops closing in behind, not everyone had had time to reload and so their shots had soon petered out, leaving their backs vulnerable to their pursuers. What had begun as an ambush had fast become a desperate rearguard action and Hawkwood didn’t have to look back to know that their trail was so obvious that a blind man could follow it.
All told, they appeared to be four men down; a sizeable toll, and not just for their party. Gaanundata was a small village. Even the loss of four fighters would leave a scar; one that would take a long time to heal. Born into a culture where, notwithstanding their expertise, adult males were, by tradition, full-time providers and only part-time warriors, it said a lot for Tewanias’s authority that the survivors had decided not to cut their losses and leave Hawkwood to face the column on his own – though they would have been within their rights to do so.
Another flurry of reports sounded and he ducked. Looking around him, no one appeared to be hit, which made him wonder if the troops had either lost sight of them or were just poor shots. His throat constricted when he saw what appeared to be smoke ahead. His first thought was that somehow the enemy had managed to outflank them. But then he realized, as the ground turned to porridge beneath him, that it wasn’t smoke at all but mist congregating over water. And it wasn’t Quade’s men who’d cut off their escape route; Nature had provided her own inimitable barrier.
Only quick thinking by one of Tewanias’s men prevented Hawkwood from being sucked into the bog. He was up to his knees and going down when the nearest warrior to him – Chohajo – thrust out his war bow, allowing Hawkwood to grasp the tip so that he could be pulled to safety. As his feet found firmer ground and he caught his breath, it struck him that Lawrence would have appreciated the irony of the situation after his own experience during their crossing of the Saranac.
All humorous thought quickly evaporated when he saw what lay before them.
With pockets of mist drifting across its surface like steam, it was impossible to tell how far the mire extended or which areas were solid and which were swamp. The fact that the cold had not penetrated the ground to the extent that it had become safe to walk upon was a warning not to be ignored. Had he struggled, he’d likely have sunk in a lot deeper. Attempting to cross such a treacherous area was asking for trouble.
Tewanias grasped Hawkwood’s arm. “This way, Mat-huwa!”
We’re being herded, Hawkwood realized when he saw the direction in which Tewanias was leading them. He saw then just how well Quade had played the game, forcing them towards the road and the column’s waiting guns.
Hawkwood thought about the road. Quade would have been briefed on the terrain before leaving Plattsburg. He’d have known about the swamp as a place to avoid. All he’d needed to do was drive Hawkwood and Tewanias’s men towards it, knowing they’d be forced to make a detour, with only two directions available to them: east, which would place them at the mercy of Quade’s extended right flank; or west, into the path of the advancing troops. This was the option Tewanias had chosen.
Because he knows that if we can get to the road first, Hawkwood thought, we can make it. Maybe.
But even as the thought formed he saw Tewanias raise a hand. Every man froze. Hawkwood looked towards the trees ahead and the shadows within them.
Soldiers from the column. They’ve got there first, damn it.
There was a crack and a bright spit of flame. The report was followed by two more, so close together as to sound almost like a single detonation. Hawkwood threw himself behind a stump. From the corner of his eye he saw the warrior called Aqueia sag, a red flower blooming across his chest.
The other Mohawk took cover. Save for Tewanias, who, for perhaps half a second, stood as if nailed in place. For one awful moment, it seemed to Hawkwood that the war captain had been hit. But then, before his astonished gaze, as if launched from a sling shot, Tewanias began to run, not for shelter but towards the shooters.
God’s teeth! Hawkwood thought wildly, but then he realized that Tewanias had been counting the shots. And as the surviving Mohawk rose as one behind their leader, Hawkwood was up and running, too, musket in one hand, tomahawk in the other.
Wolves were at their most dangerous when cornered. Therefore, despite the troops’ exuberance at having located the enemy, there was still an understandable reluctance in attempting to track the Indians in their natural lair – the forest. Their decision to opt for firepower rather than a hand-to-hand confrontation had resulted in a gap opening up between the chasers and those being chased, with a consequent lull in the shooting. The sudden reports, therefore, were as good as a lit beacon.
Yes! Quade thought exultantly, when he heard the gunfire. The column! We have them!
Hurriedly, the major sheathed his sword. Drawing his pistol, he summoned his men to him and raced towards the sound of the shots.
Hawkwood knew he had only seconds to cover the ground before the shooter he was running at could fire off a second shot. Madness, but he ran anyway.
He was fifteen paces short when the brim of the shooter’s hat lifted and his features came into view. It was Pike’s scout, Amos. The man who, if Lawrence’s observation was correct, had sent the Oneida trackers after them with orders to kill.
He saw the scout mouth the word, “You!” as the long gun’s muzzle came swinging round. The bore looked about a mile wide.
Hawkwood hurled the tomahawk, aware as he did so of Tewanias veering to one side and curving his war club towards the Indian to the scout’s right. The third shooter – also an Indian – was turning, knife drawn, to face the warriors rushing in behind.
The scout’s reactions were commendably fast. As the hatchet left Hawkwood’s hand, Walker twisted aside and threw the musket barrel across his body to deflect the spinning blade. The threat countered, he swung the long gun down and pulled back on the trigger.
There was no finesse in Hawkwood’s attack, only brute strength and momentum. His rising shoulder hit the musket barrel as Walker fired. The force of the charge swept Walker off his feet and carried both men to the ground, Walker’s gun trapped between them. As the scout’s head went back, Hawkwood rammed his knee up into Walker’s groin. Immediately the scout’s grip on his musket loosened, enough for Hawkwood to slam the butt of his own gun down against the bridge of the scout’s nose as hard as he could. A second blow was unnecessary but he followed through anyway. Walker died with the look of surprise etched on to his bearded, pulverized face.
Fearful for Tewanias, Hawkwood spun round to find the Mohawk captain standing over his opponent. The facial tattoos and the nose- and ear-rings identified him as the warrior who’d been present in Pike’s hut. He was alive and trying to rise, but his eyes were glazed in pain. The bone in his right elbow – struck by Tewanias’s war club – jutted from his skin and blood was flowing from the back of his right leg where the tendon had been severed just behind the knee.
Tewanias held his war club loosely in his hand, his chest rising and falling. As Hawkwood rose to his feet, Tewanias hammered the club head against the defeated warrior’s temple, killing him instantly. Then, quickly, drawing his knife, he laid the club aside, squatted, and ran the knife blade around the feathered scalp lock. Ripping it free with a howl of triumph, he held it aloft before sheathing the knife, retrieving his club and tucking the bloody trophy into his belt.
Hawkwood turned to where the body of the second Oneida warrior lay face down in the snow. Tewanias’s men had claimed their revenge. Clubbed and then hacked into ribbons, the corpse looked like something left on a butcher’s block.
Hawkwood picked up his tomahawk and cleaned it of snow. Tewanias caught his eye. Words weren’t necessary. They had been lucky; there had only been three shooters. But where were the rest?
And then Cageaga looked behind him and hissed, “They
are coming! Run!”
It had taken Quade only a second to realize it wasn’t the column. The lack of sustained gunfire had told him that.
So who …?
Then he heard the howl.
Quade’s hair stood on end. Primal, more animal than human, the sound matched the war whoops heard when the van had come under attack at the bridge. Quade didn’t like to think what it might mean.
Moments later, he came upon the bodies.
Staring wordlessly down at Amos Walker’s stove-in face – partly in horror, partly in shock – the thought that ran through his mind was that at least the scout’s corpse had not been mutilated, unlike the remains of the two Oneida warriors who lay sprawled alongside him. Not that it would have made much difference, given the damage that had been inflicted upon the man’s skull. From what Quade could see, there had been no attempt by Walker’s attacker to stun or incapacitate. The blow – or blows – had been delivered with but one purpose: to extinguish life.
Another thought then struck him. Why only three bodies? Walker’s party had included four Oneida scouts. Where were the other two?
Native irregulars were, in Quade’s experience, prone to retreat when they knew the odds were stacked against them. As they would have regarded Walker – or, more likely, Cornelius – as their leader, the others had probably felt disinclined to continue the fight once those two were killed. Had they taken advantage of the surrounding cover and slipped off into the woods? If so, then God rot their cowardly black hearts.
A chorus of fresh gunshots interrupted his thoughts, followed by the lieutenant’s excited voice.
“We have them in sight again, Major! You were right! They’re making for the road!”
The lieutenant’s observation was cut short as more brisk reports echoed through the trees. Quade heard a nearby voice exclaim loudly, “Christ, Jed, you couldn’t hit a barn door!”
Quade recognized the corporal with whom he’d exchanged words earlier.
