by Simon Hawke
“No head, you say’?” said Hewitt, frowning. “Balderdash!” “Macintosh does not think that it was balderdash.” said Moffat.
“The man was obviously drunk.” said Hewitt. “He was seeing things.”
“Then all who were with him shared the same delusion.” Moffat said. “They all swore that it was true.”
A crowd had guthered around their table to listen as Moffat went on with the story.
“The rider came galloping straight at them, so they said, as if to run them down. They scattered and the rider galloped past, then reined in and turned his horse and came at them again. Jeb Stiles wasn’t quick enough to get out of the way. he was struck solid by the rider’s horse. I hear it broke his ribs.”
“That’s true!” said someone in the crowd. “His wife told me he couldn’t finish mending my chair because his ribs were broken! She said he’d been struck down in the street by a horseman!”
“Go on, go on!” said someone else. “What happened then?”
“The headless horseman reined in once again and his black stallion reared up.” said Moffat, playing to the crowd. “They heard him laugh. A wild, screeching laughter that echoed through the night! Ransome Howard drew his knife and threw it at the rider. And all who were there said they saw it pass right through him, as if he wasn’t there!”
“He simply missed.” said Hewitt, skeptically. though he too had become caught up in the story.
“Howard never misses!” someone in the crowd said “He’s deadly with that knife of his. I’ve seen him pin a squirrel right to a tree!”
Others who’d seen Howard throw his knife attested to his skill with it.
“So then what happened’?” someone in the crowd said.
“Well,” said Moffat, “they say the headless rider screeched like a soul being torn apart in Hell and came galloping straight at them once again. And an instant before he was upon them, both horse and rider vanished into thin air right before their eyes!”
“Vanished, did you say!”
“Disappeared like smoke.” said Moffat. “A ghost!” said someone in the crowd.
“Since when do ghosts break people’s ribs?” asked Hewitt.
“No, that’s true enough, they don’t,” said Drakov. “And I, for one, do not believe in ghosts.”
“Nor I,” said Hewitt. “It all sounds like some silly schoolboy’s tale to me.”
“Perhaps.” said Drakov. “But then Moffat here said they swore it was all true.”
“And so they did.” said Moffat. “Ben tits said he’d swear it on the Bible.”
“Then how do you account for it?” said Hewitt. “Well, it’s true enough they had been drinking,” Moffat said with a shrug. And think on it, would a manas proud of his knife-throwing as Ransome Howard admit it if he’d missed?”
The people in the crowd around them nodded and murmured among themselves. “But you said they saw the horseman vanish like a ghost!” said someone in the crowd.
“So they said.” admitted Moffat. “For my own part. I cannot attest to the truth or falsity of that, since I was not there myself.”
“Then how do you explain it?” someone said.
“Yes.” said someone else, “one drunken man can have his eyes play tricks on him, but you say they all saw the same thing.”
“Well, so they say,” said Drakov. “But then, gentlemen, consider the alternative.”
“What do you mean?” asked Brown.
You all tell me what a bold and swaggering lot the ruffians who call themselves the Sons of Liberty have become,” said Drakov. “And how many of them were there that night, five, six, more? And doubtless, there were those present in the tavern who were not among their number, and who prudently chose to remain inside rather than risk being caught up in a brawl out in the street. Yet they saw that someone had thrown that pumpkin through the window, knocking Macintosh down to the floor. And they doubtless heard the commotion in the street, and then saw Stiles being carried back inside with his ribs all busted up. What were the gallant Sons of Liberty to say, that six or more of them were bested by one man? That one man put them all to flight?”
The crowd murmured its agreement.
“Even so, Dark,” said Hewitt, “why should they concoct such an outrageous story? Why not simply claim they were outnumbered?”
“Perhaps,” said Drakov, “because there was a witness or two who were not among their number, not members of the Sons of Liberty, that is to say, who were outside with them and could assert that they were only up against one man. And. gentlemen, let us ask ourselves, if what they saw was not, in fact, a spirit of some sort, then what must they have seen? A man dressed all in black, on horseback, perhaps with his cloak pulled up so that they could not see his face? Is it not possible that rather than vanish, he merely galloped quickly down some convenient alleyway when they scattered before his horse, so that he only seemed to disappear?”
“That sounds much more plausible to me than the idea of some ghost.” said Hewitt. “In which case, bravo to that man! Let us drink a toast to him!”
“Hear, hear!” said a few people in the crowd.
“Yes, by all means, let us applaud that man, whoever he may be.” Drakov concurred. “But, gentlemen, before we drink our toast, let us consider that we might well profit from that unknown man’s example.
“Indeed?” said Brown. “How so?”
“Consider the Sons of Liberty, gentlemen,” said Drakov. “Who are they? What are they? Men much like ourselves, no more, no less. And yet, day by day, it appears that more and more, the city falls under their grip. And why, I ask you? Because they arc better men than we?”
“No, by God!” said Brown.
“Indeed, no, they are not,” said Drakov. “And yet what makes them so different from ourselves that they seem to have such power? What. precisely, is their power, gentlemen? That, with the exception of a very few, their members are not known.”
“But we all know who they are,” protested Brown.
“Do we?” Drakov asked. “How many of them can you name? Six? Eight? Ten, perhaps? Fifteen or twenty. at best? Yet when they stage their demonstrations, how many of them are there? Forty, fifty, sixty or more? When they come to threaten people in the night, are not many of them masked, or their faces blackened with burnt cork?”
“Yes, that’s true enough.” one of the tax commissioners said. “I can readily attest to that.”
“Their power. Then,” said Drakov. “seems to lie in the fact that they accomplish much of what they do by stealth. By being unknown, by heaving stones through windows in the night and such. And now, it seems, a loyal subject of King George has given them a taste of their own medicine, paid them back in their own coin.” He raised his eyebrows and looked around at them. “Can we not learn from his example, gentlemen?”
John Hewitt smiled. “A wise man can always profit by the good example of another.” he said. “I wonder who our ‘headless horseman’ is. And I wonder if he will ride again soon?”
“I should not be in the least surprised.” said Moffat.
“In the meantime,” Drakov said, “perhaps his fellow loyal subjects of King George should discuss how best to give the horseman our support?”
“What do you propose, Nicholas?” said Brown.
“Gentlemen,” said Drakov, picking up his glass of wine, “the Sons of Liberty are bent upon visiting their deviltry upon us. They give us deviltry, 1 say we rebel against it and pay them back with hellfire!”
“Hear, hear!”
“Well said! Well said!”
“Gentlemen,” said Drakov, rising to his feet with upraised glass. “I give you the headless horseman! And all those with the courage to ride along beside him!”
“I’ll drink to that!”
“And so will I. by God!”
“Me, too!”
“Your glasses, gentlemen! Raise up your glasses!”
“To the headless horseman!” Moffat said. “Hellfire to the
Sons of Liberty!”
They all joined in the toast and drank.
“To the headless horseman! Hellfire to the Sons of Liberty!”
“I wonder.” Moffat said, as if musing to himself, “does anyone among us stable a black stallion?”
They all started glancing at one another.
“John, don’t you have a black stallion in your stable?” Moffat asked.
“What, me? The headless horseman?” Hewitt said, with a snort. “Not I. It’s true. I have a black horse in my stable, but it is an old mare. A walking country horse. Hardly the sort of mount for clattering about the streets of Boston in the middle of the night!”
“Stoddard has a black horse!” someone cried. “And it’s a stallion, too!”
“No, no, my stallion is a bay!” Stoddard protested.
“Perhaps it was a bay they saw that night!”
“No. it was black, they said, like jet.”
“Gentlemen. gentlemen!’” said Drakov. raising his arms to get their attention. He waited till they’d settled down. “What does it profit us to speculate upon who this man might he?”
“Do you happen to own a black stallion. Mr. Dark?” said someone in the crowd.
“As it happens. I do not own any horses whatsoever,” Drakov said. “And these gentlemen can tell you. I had not yet arrived in Boston when the headless horseman first made his appearance. so I think that we can all safely assume I am not he.”
“Yes, that’s quite true,” said Hewitt. “Nicholas has only just arrived in the colonies. He does not even have a place to call his own yet.”
“Quite so, gentlemen,” said Drakov. “But my point is simply this. Our mysterious horseman may be among us even now, for all we know, or he might be dining at this very moment in some other part of town, altogether unaware of our interest in him. In either event, what difference does it make? He serves all our interests best by being unknown. Remember that if we cannot discern his true identity, then neither can the Sons of Liberty.
“Your point is well taken. Dark.” said Brown. “But then how may we let him know that there are those among us ready and willing to lend him our support?”
“Well, our horseman is clearly a Tory, that much we know,” said Drakov. “And we all know who our fellow Tories are, do we not? I say we spread the word among all of our friends. That way, whoever he may be, the word must surely reach him. Let it be known that there are those among us who stand ready to oppose the lawlessness of Samuel Adams and his mob. And if the horseman wants our help, then surely a man of his resources must find a way to tell us.”
“You think he will respond?” said Hewitt.
“We can only wait and sec.” said Drakov. “But if our headless horseman is the man of action he appears to be. then I think we may be hearing from him soon.”
Benjamin Hallowell was not the sort of man who was easily intimidated and he had very little sympathy for the grievances of Boston’s radicals, especially after the Sons of Liberty attacked his home. He did not care for Boston. He much preferred the civility of London, but the new regulations had required him to personally assume his post as a collector of customs duties in the colonies.
In the past, it had been the practice for men appointed to his office to remain in England and appoint people in the colonies to act in their place, as their deputies, but the ministry had put a stop to that. The colonists were all too often sympathetic to the smugglers and the colonial deputies had often looked the other way, accepting bribes from merchants and their captains to ignore the smuggled goods. Hallowell was an ambitious man and he did not intend to settle down in Massachusetts. He meant to impress his superiors in England with the efficient way that he performed his duties and to use his post in Boston as a step up the ladder to further his career in government service.
For a long time, he had been waiting for the opportunity to make an example of one man in particular, a man who was notorious for his flagrant disregard of the Acts of Trade and Navigation, and now, thanks to the recent arrival in port of the Romney and the Lawrence, it seemed the moment had arrived to teach the haughty John Hancock a lesson that was a long time overdue. Hallowell listened grim-faced as his chief collector, Joseph Harrison, made his report.
“From the moment that I saw the Liberty pull into the wharf,” said Harrison, “I suspected that her holds were loaded full of smuggled goods. She rode low in the water, far too low to account for what was on her manifest.” Harrison snorted. “When I boarded her for my inspection, the captain claimed that the ship’s entire cargo consisted of twenty-live pipes of Madeira. And yet any fool could see the ship was loaded to capacity!”
“So you insisted on making a personal inspection, of course,” said Hallowell.
“Yes, and no sooner had I done so than they offered me a bribe!” said Harrison. He drew himself up stiffly. “I refused, of course.”
“Of course,” said Hallowell. “What happened then?”
“They bullied me,” said Harrison, his tone almost that of a small boy who had been picked on by his elders. “The ship’s crew gathered around and threatened me, tried to make me take the bribe, but when I still refused, they seized me-actually seized me! — and dragged me down below decks, where they locked me up in one of the cabins! I pounded on the door, hut they only laughed at me and said that I should cool my heels for a while and think things over. For three hours or more they left me there, heedless of my protests, until the sun went down! And then I heard the ship being unloaded. And they unloaded than more than twenty-five pipes of wine, I can tell you that, sir! Afterward, when they were done with the unloading, they let me out and made out as if it had all been some mistake! They even had the barefaced effrontery to suggest that I had locked myself inside the cabin! The brass! The very brass of them! And now, even as we speak, they’re loading up the ship again and making ready to leave port, doubtless with more contraband bound for the Indies, and of what use is it to demand to see the contents of their hold? They will do the same thing once again, or worse!”
“No, they most certainly will not.” said Hallowell, grimly. “Hancock has gone too far this time. I will not have my customs collectors bullied about, no, sir! John Hancock might well be the richest man in Boston, but that does not put him above the law!”
“But what can we do?” asked Harrison.
“We can hit him where it hurts him most, Joseph. In his pocketbook. I intend to seize his ship.”
“His crew will never stand for that, sir! They are a rough lot, indeed. I tell you, it would be as much as worth my life to serve seizure papers on them, sir. I have a family to think of…”
“Calm yourself, Joseph.” Hallowell said. “I would not send you alone to risk such treatment once again. I will request Capt. Corner of the His Majesty’s Ship Romney to provide us with an armed escort. After that incident with the press gang, I’ll warrant those men are itching to get back some of their own. We will wait until the ship is fully loaded and then, my friend, we shall seize her, complete with all her cargo, and have her towed under the Romney’s guns, least they should try to board the ship at night and sail it away. I will teach Hancock’s ruffians to harass one of my men, by God! I’ll not suffer their insolence one moment longer! Here, have this message delivered to the Romney’s captain. And here are your seizure papers. As of this moment, the Liberty and all her cargo are the property of His Majesty, the King!”
The Liberty lay fully loaded at the dock and awaiting the next tide when the longboats from the Romney pulled up to the wharf. The same officer who had led the press gang was in command and this time, he moved quickly, before the crowd had time to gather. In the company of Ben Hallowell, Thomas Irving, the inspector of imports, Joseph Harrison and his eldest son, Richard, who was a customs clerk, the officer marched his men up on the liberty’s deck and served the ship’s captain with the seizure papers.
“Sir, you are charged with violation of the Acts of Trade and Navigation and henceforth, this ship and
all her cargo are forfeit to His Majesty, the King,” said Hallowell.
“The hell it is.” the captain said.
At a signal from the officer, one of the Romney’s men knocked him to the deck with the butt end of his musket. Several of the crew started forward angrily. but stopped when they found themselves staring down the barrels of muskets loaded with grape shot. “All right, you scurvy, smuggling lot.” the officer said firmly. “Face right about and down the gangplank with you, every man jack of you! Move sharply, now! First man who hesitates, I’ll have his guts for garters! Move!”
Sullenly, the Liberty’s crew marched down the gangplank. The word had already been spread along the docks and an angry crowd was quickly forming The men from the Romney wasted no time in running lines out to the longboats for the Liberty to be towed out into the harbor, close beneath the Romney’s guns.
“Well done, sir.” said Hallowell to the ship’s officer. “My compliments to Capt. Corner.”
“I will convey them, sir,” the officer said. “And now, with your permission, we’d best get on about our business. That crowd yonder on the dock has an ugly look about it. I would not linger overlong if I were you.”
“No need to worry.” Hallowell said smugly. “They may stand there and jeer till dawn for all the good it does them, damn their eyes for their impudence! Come, gentlemen. we’ve done our duty.”
No sooner had they stepped off the gangplank than the first stone came sailing out from the crowd. The Romney’s men made haste to pull the gangplank in and the rowers hurriedly bent to their task. Slowly, ponderously, the sloop began to move as the men in the longboats strained at their oars to tow the ship out into the harbor. The men still aboard the Liberty took shelter as they were pelted with a rain of rocks and bricks from the angry crowd. Ben Hallowell watched smugly as the Liberty was slowly towed away from the dock.
“Take that. John bloody Hancock!” he said. “Ben,” said Irving, pulling at his sleeve. They turned and found their way blocked by the crowd. The crew of the Liberty were among them. Some of the men were holding clubs. Hallowell looked around nervously, but time was nowhere for them to go.
