The Iron Chain

by Jim DeFelice

  Jake pried the musket from the dead man's hands and dragged him a few feet deeper into the woods. Taking up the loaded Brown Bess, he crept to the barn, listening to see if the Tories had heard anything. If so, no one stirred — the troopers must have sought sleep as a salve for their disappointments.

  For a brief moment, he considered whether it might not be a good idea to lock the door and carry out Rose's earlier design of burning down the building. He dismissed the idea, albeit reluctantly; even if he succeeded in killing the entire group, he might not stop the British attack on the chain.

  Jake tucked the musket beneath a bush where he might find it if necessary and sneaked back along the edge of the woods to the house. The rear door was barred against easy entry, as were the windows. Finally he took Wedget's knife and tickled the twelve-pane panel that threw light into the summer kitchen; it shot up quickly and Jake half wondered if Rose had greased it against his approach.

  The room he climbed into was so dark it suggested another possibility — an entire company of rangers could have waited in ambush without Jake seeing them. Fortunately, there was but a solitary guard, whose presence Jake detected only by stumbling onto its tail.

  The poor kitten yelped and scurried for the hallway, its eyes much better adjusted to the lack of light than Jake's. He followed its lead, proceeding as quietly as possible across the wide floorboards. Stoneman must have been a fine carpenter as well as a rich Tory, for the boards were so well constructed not a single one creaked.

  But perhaps he hadn't done the work himself. Stoneman was no simple farmer; while it was too dark to make out his furnishings, his house's size alone spoke of great wealth. Large and rectangular from the outside, on the inside it seemed a series of rooms opening into one another and backing around like an English garden maze. Finally Jake found his way to the hall, which ran along the center of the building and featured two large stairways upward.

  Whether she slept with other servants, the family girls, or alone, a female servant would be housed upstairs. Jake began creeping up the rear stairwell, staying close to the banister.

  He'd gone a little better than halfway when he heard the slight but distinct sound of someone walking above him.

  Rose?

  Jake went up another step and saw the faint yellow illumination of a candle shaded by a hand. He took another step — just in time to catch sight of two thick legs dressed in boots and ranger trousers, coming his way. Jake ducked and waited as the man walked awkwardly by on his tiptoes, then crept up to watch from the staircase as the man proceeded down the hall toward the rooms at the front of the house, his attention apparently focused on his planned assignation.

  Jake was somewhat surprised when he realized from the plumpness of the shadow that it must be the sergeant; he could not imagine any woman finding the gruff old goat attractive. But his wonder turned to something considerably more depressing when, after the sergeant knocked on the door at the end of the hallway, Rose's face appeared, illuminated by the Tory's candle.

  -Chapter Twenty-two-

  Wherein, the old opinions about the virtue of flowers are proven to be true.

  Who are you looking for?" asked Rose.

  "I came for Mary," answered the sergeant, to Jake's great but unspoken relief.

  "She's gone south to New York with the family this afternoon."

  The sergeant cast a furtive look down the hallway; had he not been so preoccupied, he might have caught Jake spying in the shadows near the banister.

  "You'll do," he said, putting a hand on the door as Rose tried to push it closed. "Easy girl, my stomach has given me a load of trouble all day."

  "Mary's not here! Out!" said Rose sharply.

  "There's no one here to answer your screams," said the sergeant, pushing his way into the room. "I'll tell anyone who asks that you invited me in, wench." He kicked the door closed behind him.

  Jake leapt up to the landing and went down the hall as quietly but as quickly as possible. He bent and eased the latch downwards, slipping his other hand to his boot for his knife. Then he swung the door open and sprang inside — just in time to see Rose's own solution to the dilemma: a fully loaded chamber pot, which crashed with great and instant effect on the sergeant's head.

  "You drunken bastard," Rose was telling the unconscious interloper. "I would sooner go to bed with the devil than let a Tory kiss me."

  "I'm glad to hear you still feel that way," said Jake.

  "You!"

  "I thought you needed rescuing. Obviously I got here a little late."

  "Don't get any ideas yourself," said Rose, clutching her hands in front of her nightgown.

  There are few more beautiful sights than a patriotic woman whose breasts bulge the top of her white cotton gown and curls flow softly from her loosely-tied night cap. But Jake could not afford even a brief interlude tonight — besides, there might be another chamber pot lurking beneath the bed.

  "I need your help," he said. "Are you still with us?"

  "I'd give up my life to help our Cause."

  "Get dressed and take anything you value with you. I'll wait in the hall."

  "What should I do with him?"

  Jake leaned over and inspected the sergeant. "If the smell doesn't kill him, he'll sleep for a couple of hours. We'll both be long gone by then."

  The Mary whom the sergeant had sought was the farmer's wife, a fact Rose found great pleasure in relaying once she was dressed. Mary Stoneman had lectured the family's "girls" often on the need for virtue, and had especially hounded Rose when her attachment to the apprentice was hinted. The unmasking of her hypocrisy was therefore a victory on the order of Washington's at Trenton, and Rose found it difficult to control her enthusiasm as she led Jake down the stairs to the front hallway. She had dressed in a fine blue robe dress with white petticoats — obviously not her everyday dress, and one Jake suspected quite rightly had once belonged to the woman she was criticizing.

  The outfit was mildly hooped, attractively showing off the sway of her hips. A knit shawl — prepared by her own hand — covered her shoulders, and a puffed mobcap sat atop her fixed curls. Jake now realized a second chamber pot would not have been discovered had he decided to dally, but Liberty rarely brooks delay.

  Even as the crow flies, it was at least a dozen miles from Stoneman's to Cortlandville and Old Put's headquarters beyond. With time so critical, Rose needed some way of traveling other than her legs, as shapely as they might be.

  "We need a carriage or a wagon," Jake told her, lighting a second candle off hers. "Where does your master keep them?"

  "The family took all the wagons when they left for New York City," she told him. "They ran away and left me to tend to these Tory thieves."

  "Can you ride a horse?"

  "Sir," she said indignantly, "do I look like a city girl? I can ride a horse as well as any woman—and I would bet as well as you."

  "You may get a chance to prove that bet," said Jake. "Come, let's steal a pair from our friends."

  His plan was simple. There had been no guard posted in the barnyard, the Tories deciding to concentrate their resources on the perimeter. All one had to do was walk in very quietly, untie a pair of likely looking horses, and walk out.

  Jake led Rose to the bush where he had stashed the musket. Her grip when he gave it to her made him think the young woman had taken militia training.

  "You stand at the doorway — fire it only if they wake."

  "We should kill them all while they sleep," said Rose.

  "Trust me," said Jake, patting her shoulder before putting out her candle with his fingers.

  The Tory troop had arranged itself in symmetrical fashion against the barn wall to the right, sleeping on field cots in apparent contentment. Undoubtedly they had been tired by the march back from Salem, during which they'd had to walk their bloated horses.

  The effects of the herb had worn off by now, the horses' over-stimulated digestive tracts having worked all afternoon to evacuate the
poison. They did not seem to bear any grudge toward their tormentor; indeed, the first animal he approached nuzzled against him, apparently remembering that Jake had given him sugar earlier in the day.

  The stallion's reins were looped over an iron ring at the side of the stall. Jake placed the candle on a post next to three freshly oiled saddles and quietly prepared the animal to be ridden.

  He had just rubbed the neck of a second horse in an attempt to persuade him to accept his role as a Revolutionary gracefully when a loud voice outside challenged Rose.

  "The sergeant needs you in the house," he heard her say. "There are American thieves afoot."

  Jake did not hear the reply to this, if there was one, for it was drowned out by the report of a musket. Cursing, he jumped up on the second horse's unsaddled back, grabbing at the reins of the first animal and kicking his mount toward the door.

  As the horse leaped into action, Jake lost his grip on the other's rein. But his lunge brought his hand to the post where the candle was, and a sudden stroke of inspiration made him swat the candle to the ground. It fell against a pile of straw which had earlier sopped up some of the excess wax used on the saddles. Worn by the breeze, the candle's flame fluttered, unsure whether to exert itself. Then it remembered its patriotic duty, bucking itself up like a private enlisted for the duration — bold yellow tongues shot up to the rafters.

  "Fire!" yelled Jake as he prodded his horse toward the door.

  Confusion erupted with the flames. The horses screamed; men fell from their beds shouting. Jake held tight to the neck of his mount as he followed his instincts, plunging toward the barely opened door.

  They had just crossed the threshold when a dark shadow leapt at his side. Jake turned to push it away — then realized it was Rose.

  "You took your time," she told him curtly, pulling herself up behind him. "I thought I would have to hold off the entire troop."

  "You'd have beaten them, I'm sure," yelled Jake as he hunkered down on the horse and headed for the road.

  "The Tories may realize something's wrong if I don't make it back to jail quickly," Jake told her when they finally stopped two miles up the road. "We'll have to split up."

  "Be off then. I know my way to Robinson's Bridge where the Continentals are camped."

  "Old Put's house is in the village of Peekskill," said Jake, slipping off the horse. "It should be obvious from the guards. Remember everything I've told you. And if anyone stops you — "

  "I'm not a simpleton. A child could deliver your message successfully."

  "Putnam won't believe a child," said Jake. He reached into his shirt and drew out his Segallas. "Show him this pocket pistol as soon as you arrive. He'll know it's mine. There isn't another one like it in the colonies."

  "The general knows you that well?"

  "The old man and I have sung a few songs together at Fraunces Tavern. His 'Maggie Lauder' is quite good." Jake looked down the road. The Tories had not mounted a pursuit, undoubtedly concentrating their efforts on saving the barn and their horses. They seemed to have been successful — the telltale glow such a great fire would produce was notably absent.

  "A Dutchman named Claus van Clynne was to meet me on the road tonight and failed to turn up. It's likely he's still with Putnam. You'll know him if you see him — he's as fat as a pregnant sow and complains twice as much. He has a red beard that fills much of his chin and chest besides; he pulls it whenever he thinks over a knotty problem, which is often. He's a good man, though; you can trust him."

  "I doubt I would ever trust a Dutchman."

  "Trust no one else," said Jake sternly. "If you do meet up with him, tell him to go to Albany immediately. He'll recognize the gun as well."

  "You've sang with him, too?"

  "That is an experience almost too terrible to imagine," said Jake. A dim twilight was starting to invade the darkness; he could see her face clearly.

  Would she succeed? A great deal depended on her getting to Putnam. Jake would do his best to sabotage the Tory efforts from inside their camp, but the guard must be alerted in case he failed. Her information would aid them greatly, especially as it foretold when the assault would be launched, and warned Putnam to guard Busch's farm, where Jake thought the assault would be launched from.

  Freedom often calls upon common folk to play a noble role in Her struggle. Had it not been for the war — had it not been for her fortuitous meeting with Jake — this young woman would have spent her life as a simple housewife, bearing life's commonplace dangers with her quiet courage.

  Now she would have to prove herself the equal of Paul Revere's midnight army, the fifty or sixty anonymous men and women whom the silversmith had rallied to save Concord and Lexington. Jake reached up to give her a kiss of encouragement. While he meant to aim for her cheek, she turned her lips toward him; they met in a warm, lingering moment fired by the passion of a shared cause.

  "Hurry now," he told her, patting the horse's bare back. "Don't fail me."

  "I won't," she said, spurring the steed away.

  -Chapter Twenty-three-

  Wherein, Jake finds it necessary to rout the American forces.

  Jake proceeded back to jail at a half-trot; even so, the going took longer than the coming. By the time he arrived it was little more than an hour before dawn.

  Along the way, the spy pondered the pending operation to liberate the Tory prisoners. It was bound to put the American soldiers standing guard at risk, and could very well prove fatal to them.

  The greater good of protecting the chain must be served, of course, but Lieutenant Colonel Jake Gibbs was not the sort of officer who could make cold calculations of human lives so blithely. He therefore decided to try to find some way of removing the militia guards from harm's way before the assault was launched.

  Given the circumstances of his escape, Jake had hopes that whatever guards had been posted would still be sleeping upon his return. This would make his course an easy one — each man could be trussed and trundled off to the woods while still dozing, assuming Jake could find their nap nooks.

  Alas, an officer had made the rounds of the watch sometime after Jake's departure. As he cut through the barnyard across from the church, the patriot spy saw that the sentry whom he had landed on was now wide awake and pacing angrily in front of the church. The fellow's previous companion, Sleep, had been replaced by a much younger man shouldering a musket. The pair were grumbling loudly about their lieutenant, complaining about his threats and suspicious nature.

  Jake retreated to regroup. His mental processes received a sudden jolt when, turning the corner of the barn, he smacked into another soldier, a short, frailish fellow of fifty-odd years who fell back in surprise.

  "Excuse me," said Jake quickly, extending his left hand to help up the poor man — and then smashing him across the face with his right.

  He grabbed his musket and hunkered down as he heard footsteps in the road; the distance between the church and barn was only two or three rods, and even the most precursory march could cover the twenty or thirty yards in a few seconds. But the guard did not come around the back, and Jake soon heard the steps walking the other way.

  The fact that these militiamen had no set uniform, save the simple white straps crossing their chests and holding up a sack apiece, meant it would be easy enough to impersonate one. Jake took off the older man's straps and bags, then grabbed his powder horn as well. But he decided against stealing his long coat, as it would most likely have left the pallid-looking militiaman to face the rest of his call-up without one. Tying the soldier's hands with a piece of rawhide he found in the sack, Jake pulled off one of the man's boots, intending to gag him with his sock. But the sight of the bare heel and toes peeking out from the torn material moved him to pity, and he replaced the boot and pulled the man to the edge of the woods instead.

  As far as Jake could discover creeping around the barn, the only other soldiers in the vicinity were the two fellows in the front of the church. Their patrol wa
s haphazard, serving mostly to vent their emotion at the officer whose scolding had kept them from a good night's sleep. The man Jake had jumped earlier now expressed the opinion that the lieutenant had thrashed him on the head and shoulders before waking him, and cursed the man for denying it.

  The men's oaths suggested an easy ploy — Jake would arrive cursing as well, and claim that the lieutenant had ordered him to replace them. But he worried they might not take the bait, and having neglected their duty before, might seek to make up for it now by asking a copious amount of questions. He therefore decided to launch a supplementary plan to draw their attention away — a barn fire. Given that he had recently worked that ploy to advantage at Stoneman's — intentionally or not, one couldn't fuss with the results — the patriot spy felt somewhat confident it would work here.

  The only inconvenience was the poor design of the structure, which concentrated all openings at the front of the road, in full view of the soldiers.

  Jake waited until both men were turned in the opposite direction and then scampered into the barn through a narrow doorway without being seen.

  Almost without being seen. For he had no sooner ducked from the dim twilight of the roadway to the utter darkness of the barn's interior when he heard a shout from the street.

  Somewhat indistinct, the words were followed by the more definite sound of a pair of boots running in his direction. Jake took a step backwards into the bowels of the large structure, only to feel something sharp and pointed in his back. Instinctively, he dropped the musket and put up his hands — then ducked in a flash, diving to the ground in case there was a loaded gun attached to the bayonet that had stuck him.

  Not precisely. As he rolled over to kick his assailant, Jake looked up into the puzzled eyes of a large but tranquil ox. It curled its tongue with a question, yawned, and shook its head. Two dozen of its fellows swung their tails in sympathy.