Savage Liberty

by Eliot Pattison

  Mallory’s fierce gaze settled on the gold piece. “So you do have the treasure.”

  “Go,” Duncan repeated.

  The sergeant seemed to relax, and Longtree stepped out of the chamber to speak with Woolford. As soon as the Mohawk disappeared, Mallory leapt at Duncan. A dagger had appeared in his hand, and he pressed its blade against Duncan’s throat. “The hangman will have his prize!” he spat. “We’ll both go, you bastard, and you will give me the gold or I will see the color of your guts! Where do we find the—”

  Mallory never finished the question. He groaned, then sagged, and the dagger fell from his hand as he collapsed to the floor. Buchanan had sunk his sword bayonet between his ribs.

  “Beg pardon, sir, hope he spilled no blood on ye,” the Highland soldier said in a gratified tone, then bent to extract his blade from Mallory’s body. “Always did want to kill a sergeant.”

  Longtree reappeared, quickly assessing the situation, and directed his men to strip away Mallory’s uniform and deposit him in the river with rocks tied to his limbs. As the body was dragged away, Duncan explained to Woolford what Comtois had said. “How many ships sail from Montreal to France?” he asked his friend.

  “Very few, I should think,” Woolford replied. “Two or three a month, perhaps.”

  “Then it should not be difficult. Comtois said the ledger had been put in transit, but he would not venture far from it. It will be on his ship, the vessel sailing for France the day after tomorrow. We need every man in his uniform.” He turned to Buchanan. “Could you collect your squad of Highlanders to lend some authority?”

  “Sir?”

  “We will be doing a surprise revenue inspection of that ship. There’s a crate of antiquarian books that needs to be confiscated.”

  22

  THE CHAMBER ON THE TOP floor of the stone fortress had a scent of oiled leather and wig talcum. Half a dozen Highlanders led by Corporal Buchanan, betraying no sign of their sleepless night spent with Duncan and Woolford, stood in rigid attention at the back of the room as Major Robert Rogers, freshly shaven and in a clean uniform, was escorted before the stern triumvirate of judges. Horatio Beck, bruised but washed and well groomed in his lieutenant’s uniform, sat at a table on the right, beside a nervous young officer who was apparently the prosecutor. Duncan, Woolford, and Conawago sat at the back. Sitting alone on the other side was Robert Livingston, whose beefy countenance had grown deeply worried, almost stricken, when he saw Duncan.

  Presiding Judge Colonel Hazlitt called the chamber to order with a hammering of his pistol butt on the table and declared in a solemn voice that this was a hearing on the disposition of charges against Major Rogers. Beck leaned into the ear of the prosecutor, who stared straight ahead without reaction. Beck himself spoke up in an oily, chastising tone. “Surely you mean the commencement of the trial on capital charges of treason, sir.”

  Hazlitt fixed him with an angry gaze. “You have no authority in this room, Lieutenant. Nor do you have our permission to speak.” He turned to Rogers. “Major, have you read the bill of particulars concerning the charges against you?”

  The major replied in a steady, voluble voice. “I have, Your Honor, perhaps a score of times. And I have submitted my defense.”

  “Which I have shared with my fellow judges,” Hazlitt confirmed.

  Beck shot up out of his chair. “I have not seen any such statement!” he protested.

  “You are warned, sir,” Hazlitt barked. “Be seated!”

  The colonel leafed through the papers before him. “The government’s charges are based on a theory of conspiracy to defy the king’s authority in North America by setting up a separate state in the lands east of Lake Champlain. But we now have reason to believe that this was a gross misinterpretation of evidence.” Hazlitt fixed Rogers with a searching gaze. “You state that your actions were for the benefit of King George, aimed at discovering the location of a large sum of money that was secretly hidden by our enemies at the end of the last war. A fascinating tale, sir, if only we had proof of it.”

  “We have the best of proof, sir,” Rogers answered. “The ultimate proof, if I may.” Hazlitt nodded, and Rogers rose to drop two gold demi-louis coins on the judges’ table. “We have recovered several thousand of these. As we speak, they are being handed over to soldiers under Captain Woolford’s command, who will bring them to this very fortress before nightfall.”

  Beck gasped. “No! You can’t possibly—” At a gesture from Colonel Hazlitt, a delighted Corporal Buchanan clamped an arm around Beck’s neck and began dragging him out of the chamber. As his protests were choked away, he held up his hands in surrender, and Buchanan halted, holding Beck upright, still in his grip.

  “And where exactly was this gold found, sir?” one of the other judges asked.

  “In the forest cabin used by a Monsieur Bougainville, a senior French officer present at Montreal during the French capitulation, who remains a high-ranking officer in King Louis’s army to this day. He secreted the gold there before leaving Montreal, unbeknownst to those who innocently maintained the cabin for him,” Rogers added. They had agreed that they would keep the role of the Jesuits out of their tale. The old Mohawk woman had confessed to Corporal Longtree that she was happy to be rid of the gold, which had given her no end of worries over the years since Deschamps, no doubt with the vicar general’s guidance, had brought it there.

  Hazlitt ordered the sulking Beck brought to the judges’ table. “The record further indicates, Mr. Beck, that you successfully uncovered two French spies in the course”—Hazlitt searched for words—“of all this. Spies named Comtois and Meunier, who killed thirty-seven sailors in Boston harbor. And then you cleverly arranged fictitious charges of treason against Mr. McCallum so he could bring added pressure on the pretense of clearing his name.” He fixed Beck with a contemptuous gaze, daring him to protest, then lifted a page from the stack in front of him. “And a clandestine agent from France living here in Montreal has been identified. Very clever of you to leave him in place, unknowing of our discovery, so he can be observed by our most clever of watchers,” he said with a glance at Woolford, who had agreed that his furtive team of Mohawks would keep the old book collector on Valcours Street under surveillance. The biggest threat raised by the French was, after all, in the western lands of the tribes. “Most excellent,” the colonel declared in a hollow voice. “London shall hear of your efforts—no doubt the king himself.”

  Beck turned and glared at Duncan, then sighed and hung his head. He was beaten. “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “You will put your signature to our statement confirming so, and to a letter to the governor of Massachusetts that we have written for you.”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Beck repeated.

  “And where are Comtois and Meunier now?” Hazlitt asked Rogers.

  “They killed rangers, sir,” Rogers stated flatly. “They are being watched by rangers and will be dealt with by rangers.”

  Beck’s protest had a shrill, desperate tone. “No! You fools! You cannot! They must be interrogated! We can exchange them!” he shouted as he turned toward Duncan with a venomous glare. “We must find the—” His words ended in a strangled cry, echoed a moment later by Livingston. They had both spotted the small, soiled ledger that Duncan now held, resting on his knee.

  Hazlitt ignored Beck. He exchanged a pointed glance with Duncan and turned back to Rogers. “You are saying, Major, that the threat to the Crown posed by these men has been eliminated?”

  “They will no longer represent a threat to the Crown,” Rogers quietly confirmed, looking down at the table. Hazlitt looked to Woolford, who offered a confirming nod.

  “We thank you for your service, Major, and wish you swift passage back to your post in the Northwest. These charges are dismissed and this court adjourned,” Hazlitt loudly declared, hammering the table again.

  Rogers did not look up. The dream of the famed ranger had been broken, and in doing so, Duncan feared, a piece of Roge
rs himself had been broken. The colonel had inserted only one condition on the terms Duncan had proposed to him, that Rogers sign an unequivocal oath of loyalty to King George. Duncan had thought the old ranger was going to physically assault him when he brought the news to his cell, but then Rogers had looked out over the river for several long breaths. When he turned, he was fingering his wife’s necklace. “We will go to her grave, as you said?” he asked. Duncan had solemnly affirmed his vow, and Rogers had signed. There would be no state free of kings, there would be no more money for French farmers, there would be no guns in the tower of Chevelure, there would be no free order of Jesuits, but Rogers would live, and no one would be punished for having embraced the dream of Saguenay.

  DUNCAN DID NOT NEED TO press Robert Livingston for a private meeting. The New York merchant invited him to his inn for lunch after the hearing concluded and Rogers was released. Duncan declined, but set another meeting time, at Duncan’s own choice of location for later in the afternoon, after he confirmed the sailing schedule for the ship bound for the Wine Islands and Le Havre.

  Livingston was already nervous when he entered the old cemetery, and clearly he grew more uncomfortable as he passed the rows of tombstones to reach the bench Duncan sat on, not far from the restored Celtic cross.

  “Was this really necessary, McCallum?” the merchant said as he sat, leaning on his walking stick. “We could have had a fine meal together.”

  “I find that the beds of the dead make for great clarity of thinking.” In fact, Duncan had decided that for many Europeans, rows of tombstones were much like the rows of white wampum used by the Iroquois for solemn discussions, keeping conversations more truthful. “Even soul-searching,” he added, suspecting that Livingston was not a man much given to the practice.

  “So you have it, then,” the New York aristocrat abruptly declared. “Comtois showed it to me, said he was sending it to France and that I should wait for instructions. He didn’t take enough care in shipping it, apparently.”

  “He was arrogant in this as in all things. Hiding it in a crate of French books sent by a French book collector on a ship bound for France apparently seemed cunning to him.”

  “You’ve opened it, then?” Livingston asked in a thin voice.

  “It is fascinating reading. So much effort to keep such remarkable secrets, undone by simple accounting clerks.”

  “These were family enterprises, you understand. John and I were too junior then to have made any meaningful mercantile decisions.”

  “Meaningful mercantile decisions.” Duncan mouthed the words slowly. “You make it sound so ordinary. For how many years?” He answered his own question. “All the years of the war. I had friends who died in those years. I remember hearing again and again how the French would capitulate in North America because the Canadian crops kept failing, because their army couldn’t get supplies of food and materiel from France. The war was going to be over in ’57, then ’58, then in ’59. But soldiers and Iroquois kept dying, at Ticonderoga, at Duquesne, at Ligonier, at Niagara, all because the Hancocks and Livingstons and their merchant allies solved the French dilemma. What was the name of that harbor in Hispaniola? It has such a romantic ring to it.”

  “San Fernando de Monte Cristi,” Livington murmured.

  “Exactly,” Duncan said, and repeated the name. “Judging by the ledger, Hancock and Livingston ships must have anchored there almost every week, for all the war years, moving goods in and out. Delivering supplies to French ships that sailed to Canada. So more British colonists and Highlanders and Iroquois could die.”

  “Duncan, it was just business. We had goods, and the French were ready buyers.”

  “No one else could have supplied them,” Duncan said in an icy tone. “It wasn’t business. It was treason masquerading in a mercantile cloak. You sent men from your own estates to the war, men who were killed by an enemy fed by the Livingstons and Hancocks.”

  “It wasn’t John and me,” Livingston insisted, though his voice was hollow. “It was our families.”

  “Right. I don’t think you would hang. You would just be destroyed in every other sense if the ledger fell into the wrong hands.”

  “We didn’t even know it existed until last year. One of the London bankers had kept it. When he died, his son found it and began making inquiries, all too openly, among London merchants and other financiers. We had to get it back.”

  “But the French found out. If King Louis had the ledger, he would own you. And he would think he owned the Sons of Liberty, or as good as owned them, for all the influence you have with the Sons. The Sons are furious with King George. With the right spark, they might be willing to oppose him more openly in the name of a new king. That’s why Comtois and Meunier said the ledger could transform the continent. If they fomented a new war and had the Sons on their side, much of America could become French. On the other hand, if Horatio Beck had it, his superiors would think they could neutralize all opposition to the king in America.”

  Livingston wrung his hands in anguish.

  “You met with them, had an entertaining evening here even though you knew they had sunk the Arcturus. And more good men have died since then. You were ready to sacrifice me and my friends, if it came to that.”

  The New York merchant shuddered, squeezing the handle of his walking stick as if for support. “I have nightmares every night. I wake up in cold sweats. I keep seeing those bodies on the beach. John suffers the same. How could we have known?”

  Duncan did not reply. He looked out over the grave markers, many dating back to the prior century, and felt soul-weary again. Livingston and Hancock deserved their nightmares.

  After a long silence, Livingston straightened and put his hands on his knees. “So the market has shifted,” he said with a businesslike air. “What do you want, McCallum?”

  “What do I want?”

  “In exchange for the ledger. A junior partnership, perhaps. Five percent of my mercantile company. I think John would agree to the same terms.”

  A great sadness descended over Duncan. He was silent a long time. “What I want,” he said at last, “is for you and Hancock to stop thinking of the Sons of Liberty as a personal enterprise. What I want is for others to have a voice in the affairs of the Sons.” He thought for a moment and smiled. “And printing presses.”

  “Printing presses?”

  “In New England and New York. Find educated men in half a dozen smaller towns willing to publish newspapers, and then provide them with presses.”

  Livingston winced. “An expensive proposition. I don’t know if we could accept a full five percent for you then.”

  “Livingston, I do not want a percentage of anything. Just the presses. And some flowers,” he added after a moment. “I want flowers planted for a woman in Worcester.”

  It was the merchant’s turn to be silent. He too looked out over the lichened gravestones. The great aristocrat, baron of the Hudson Valley, seemed to shrink. “But you’ll keep the ledger?”

  “I’ll keep the ledger.”

  Livingston gave a long sigh. “Done,” he said.

  THE MASTER OF THE THREE-MASTED ship headed into the Atlantic had reported to the harbormaster that it would weigh anchor an hour after dawn, which meant that at midnight the Jesuits and the rangers went to work at the waterfront warehouse used by the French agents. Munro had offered the suggestion when seeing that the French kept their own boats, including a wide bark canoe of the kind used by voyageurs, and before midnight the other two boats, both large river dories, were eased out of their berths and cast adrift.

  The Mohawks had selected a ledge that overhung the river a quarter mile east of the city wall, nearly directly across from the anchorage of the big ship. As fingers of pink and gold began to stretch over the horizon, the calls of mates stirring the crew for their morning’s work carried over the still waters of the St. Lawrence.

  “You’re sure about this?” Duncan asked Woolford, not for the first time.

>   “As Major Rogers told the judges, this is rangers’ work. They killed good men in cold blood, sailors and men who wore ranger green. You heard Beck. If we turned them over to London, they would be used, not punished. The dead must have their due,” he said, echoing words Duncan had used with him. Woolford studied his six Mohawks, each of whom was loading his rifle with extra powder and shot.

  The canoe pushed off from the wharf a quarter hour later, with Comtois in the front while the paddles were worked by Meunier and the bearlike voyageur Regis who so enjoyed torturing captives. The river was wide and notoriously fast, and the canoe quickly reached the main current nearly a hundred yards offshore, steering for the ship.

  Duncan and his companions had been there since before first light, and in the glow of a lantern Munro had unfolded a tattered list he had brought from Boston. “Jonathan Pine,” he said, reading the first name on the list, then handing it to Conawago.

  “Daniel Oliver,” Conawago read, handing it around the gathered circle. The name of each victim of the Arcturus was read, and then two others.

  “Josiah Chisholm,” Duncan solemnly intoned.

  Munro had recited the last name. “Corporal Ebenezer Brandt.”

  Now, as the canoe presented itself, Woolford turned to Longtree. “Corporal,” the ranger officer said with a nod. Longtree acknowledged him with a grim smile and uttered a syllable in his tribal tongue.

  At Duncan’s side, Conawago spoke in the same tongue. “Jiyathontek,” he whispered, summoning the spirits to witness.

  Three rifles spoke almost as one. They were aimed not at the men in the canoe, but at the birchbark at its waterline. The heavy pellets ripped into the thin covering, instantly creating three large holes. Comtois shot to his feet, shouting frantically. As the big man at the stern dug his paddle into the water, desperately trying to turn to shore, Corporal Longtree fired and the paddle in his hand shattered.