The man looked around, stopped, stared directly at the trees where Black was hiding and began to gallop directly towards him, holding the reins in one hand and the knife aloft in the other. Black broke off a stout, dry branch from a tree and rode out of the copse, spurring his horse ever faster. As the man bore down and they were about to pass each other, Black swung the tree branch like a cudgel, aiming for the man’s midsection, but then, at the very last second, flipped the branch upward and connected instead with his head.
He heard the sharp crack of the man’s skull breaking, followed almost instantaneously by a sound like a stick squashing a plum. The man fell onto the trail and lay there, twitching, brains oozing from his shattered head and blood pouring out of his mouth.
Black rode back to where Stevens still lay in the road, dismounted, bent down to him, opened his shirt and spread it apart. There were two large stab wounds, one in his abdomen and one on the right side of his chest, both bleeding profusely.
“I am not dead,” Stevens said in a weak voice, barely above a whisper. “But I soon will be.”
“I will take you back to the inn, and they will fetch a doctor.”
“No, there will be too many questions. Someone will come this way soon and help me, if I can be helped, which I doubt. Take my horse. The map you will need is in the saddlebag, along with food and money. Rufus will meet you near Totowa.”
“I must stay and help you.”
“You must not.”
And so he went. But it was with a heavy heart. He had known Stevens only briefly, but had come to like him. It was not the first time, though, that he had had to leave a dead friend behind. If, against all odds, he succeeded in this mission, he hoped to make it his last.
* * *
He rode on for several hours and managed, without dismounting, to pull the map from the saddlebag and glance at it. The route was clear enough, marked out in blue ink. The line stopped at a town called Totowa, which was circled.
He passed through several villages and nodded at the few people he came upon, wished them a good day and rode on. To his relief, they merely nodded back and returned his greeting.
He stopped twice along the way, each time riding a few hundred yards off the road into the woods and each time finding a stream where both he and the horse could drink their fill. The horse grazed on the grass by the stream bank while he supped from the meagre provisions he found in the saddlebags—hard tack and stale, coarse bread.
During his stops he took time to explore what else was in the saddlebags. There wasn’t much—a well-worn copy of the Lord’s Prayer, printed on foolscap, and a long, double-edged knife with a bone handle. He examined the blade, but saw no dried blood. Either it had not been recently used or had been thoroughly cleaned.
There was also a set of handwritten orders that purported to be from the commanding officer of his regiment, granting him leave to visit his mother. The papers were creased and stained, as if he’d had to produce them for inspection more than once. The orders said that he was due to report back for duty two days hence “where the regiment will be.” He wondered how he was supposed to know where it would be, but pushed the question aside.
After feeling around some more inside the saddlebags, he found a small pouch sewn into a side wall. He loosened the threads at the top, burrowed his hand inside and pulled out a heavy lump of something rolled in cloth. He unwrapped it and watched six silver coins, all Spanish pieces of eight, tumble into his hand. They’d obviously been wrapped to keep them from jingling.
He dipped his hand further in and found, stuffed at the very bottom, a wad of paper bills. He unfolded them and counted six bills, each one a fifty-five-dollar note issued by the Continental Congress and dated 1780. Each said on its face that the bearer was entitled to receive the equivalent amount in Spanish milled dollars or an equal sum in gold or silver. It seemed far too large an amount for a poor soldier to be carrying. He put one bill in a waistcoat pocket and shoved the other bills and the coins back in the pouch. He pulled the threads tight and hoped there’d be no jingle as he rode. If the money—he assumed it to be a veritable fortune in a land racked by war—were discovered he’d quickly be unmasked as something more than a simple soldier.
At the end of his second foray into the woods, he looked at the position of the sun in the sky, which he could just make out through a small gap in the trees. He judged that it would be dark in less than two hours. Not that he had any kind of timepiece to measure the exact passage of the hours.
It was going to be far too cold to sleep outside, and in any case the saddlebags contained no blankets. He looked again at the map and saw that there was a nearby town on the blue line. Perhaps he could reach it before dark and find an inn and a bed for the night, which surely would have been Dr. Stevens’s plan in any case. He returned to the road and set off at as fast pace as the horse, who’d already carried him a far piece, was willing to go. The increasingly rutted track did not make the trip easier.
He reached the town just as the sun was setting and came immediately upon an inn and tavern called The Oaks. He noticed there was a blank space between the words The and Oaks. Looking more closely, he could see that the word Royal, which had once been in between, had been painted over, along with the image of a crown above it. It seemed a good place for a soldier fighting on the side of the Revolution to spend the night.
He tied his horse to a hitching post in front, took the saddlebag off and knocked on the door. A comely young woman, neither short nor tall, with blue eyes and with blonde hair wrapped in a bun atop her head, greeted him. He judged her no more than twenty years of age.
“Good evening, soldier.”
“Good evening, ma’am. I am Jeremiah Black. I would like dinner and a room for the night if you have it.”
“We have both dinner and a room. The hot dinner is one and ninety, the room is two—you will share with three others—and breakfast in the morning, if wanted, is another one.”
“I wish a room for myself only if that can be done.” As soon as he said it, he realized he had set himself apart from a mere soldier. But it was now too late to take it back.
She raised her eyebrows. “If you are the last guest we get for the night we will have a room for you alone, at six. If other guests by chance come later and share the room, I will reduce the price.”
“That is without problem.”
She looked over his shoulder and regarded the horse. “Pasture for the horse for twenty-four hours is four.”
“Just pasturage?”
“We can also give him a bucket of oats for another two.”
It occurred to him that he should not agree to the prices too easily.
“We will be here only until the morning,” he said. “We will not need the pasture for many hours.”
She smiled. “A fair point. I will give you the pasturage for early morning anyway if you want it, a barn for the horse for the night and the oats, all for four.”
“Agreed.”
“How do you propose to pay, soldier? We do not take barter here.” She looked him up and down, then glanced at the saddlebags in his hand and again at the horse. “Not that you appear to have any pig or such to barter with.”
“I have notes of the Continental Congress.”
She gave him a strange look. “Most people call them Continentals.”
“Of course” was all he could think of to say.
She pursed her lips. “The prices I quoted you were in shillings and pence, which is what most people hereabouts have, although the few who are very wealthy use Spanish gold or silver milled dollars.”
Black felt relief that he had not taken out the Spanish coins, which would have raised questions about where he came upon such wealth. And he was also glad he had taken the time to read the text on the notes. “Continentals are equal to Spanish milled dollars,” he said. “They say so.�
� He took one from his waistcoat pocket and held it out to her.
She made no effort to take the proffered bill from him. “That may be what is written on them, but so many have been printed that they are now close to worthless. Surely you know that.”
He decided not to try to explain away his ignorance. “I will need to go elsewhere, then.”
“No, since you are a soldier, and in support of our glorious Revolution—” she paused as if to emphasize that she had said it with sarcasm “—I will take them. But you must pay in advance. It totals to twelve and ninety, assuming breakfast.”
He gave her a broad smile and raised his eyebrows. “Do you recommend the breakfast?”
“Why yes, since I make it myself.” She smiled back at him.
With the thought that he might later need her help for something—and she was not an unattractive woman—he replied, “If you make it, I’m sure it is indeed excellent.”
He watched her blush and again handed her the fifty-five-dollar note. This time she took it. “I will have change,” he said.
When she had the bill in hand, she turned it over a few times and said, “Where did you get this note, soldier? It looks almost new.”
“I have just come from my mother’s deathbed. This and a little more was all she left me. My brother took the bedstead, the pots and the dresser.”
“You got the raw end of that deal.”
“Yes, I did. Having the room to myself will be little enough to salve the hurt.”
“I have kept you standing here in the doorway long enough,” she said. “I will show you to your room, and then I will get your change, which will buy you almost nothing. Except from me.” She smiled at him.
Black wondered, briefly, why she was being so accommodating, but pushed the thought aside. Perhaps she was attracted to him.
She led him up a rickety stairway to the second level. The room was small, but clean, and it had four narrow beds, each with homespun sheets somewhat the worse for wear, and two rough woollen blankets, folded at the bottom of the bed. There was a bowl and pitcher on the dresser.
“Is there hot water?” he asked.
“It can be boiled up for another...”
“Continental?”
“Yes, but because you are a soldier, I will do it for free.” She smiled at him again, and he thought that if he had not been on a mission, he might have arranged to stay another night.
She grabbed the pitcher and headed for the door. “Dinner is in one hour.”
“If you don’t mind, I prefer to eat alone. I am in grief and do not want to have to talk to others about my mother. Or the war, for that matter.”
“We can do that,” she said. “There is a small table to the side where I can seat you.”
“What is your name, miss?”
“Mary. Mary White. That makes us black and white.” She gave him still another smile and left.
She returned after not very long with a pitcher of hot water. He washed up and went down to dinner, taking his saddlebags with him. She seated him at a side table, as promised. Glancing at the saddlebags, she said, “You fear theft?”
“I fear the loss of the few small things of my mother’s that I brought away with me.”
“I see. And I understand.”
He placed the saddlebags under his chair and waited to be served. He looked over at the main table, where six rather rough-looking men were seated. They paid him no attention. Which was fortunate; he didn’t want to try out his story again. Soon after, a new group of four entered the room and seated themselves at another table. They, too, paid him no attention.
The meal, when it came, was hot and filling—biscuits, beef with gravy and peas. He wondered how the inn had come by the food, since Dr. Stevens had told him, while educating him about the political situation, that such things, especially beef, were in short supply.
When he was done, Mary approached him, holding a plate which held a large piece of pie. “I have made an apple-rhubarb and have a piece for you in honour of your service. Free.”
“Thank you, Mary White. I have a great love for pie. It reminds me of my mother.”
“You are most welcome, Corporal Black.” She set the pie down in front of him, and he devoured it. He had always loved the combination of sweet and tart that the apple and rhubarb combination brought, although this one had perhaps too much rhubarb. He thought to ask for another piece, but thought better of it since he was getting sleepy.
Back in his room, he decided to leave his uniform on lest he needed to flee in the middle of the night. Once he lay down it struck him that he ought not leave his saddlebags on the floor, for the room had no lock. He reached down to lift them up and put them under his head, even then struggling to stay awake long enough to do it. The last thought he had before sleep took him was that he had liked Dr. Stevens and was sorry he was gone.
8
Black awoke in the dead of night, groggy and with a great ache on the back of his head, as if he’d been clubbed. He was enough awake to realize that something sharp was pushed against his throat and that the saddlebags were no longer under his head. He tried to raise his arms to push the sharp thing away, but found they were tied rightly around his waist. He tried to jump up, but his legs were tightly bound at the ankles.
He could feel the hot breath of someone hovering over him. “What did you do with Dr. Stevens?” a voice asked. “Did you kill him?” When the voice spoke that second time, he realized it was Mary.
To admit to knowing Dr. Stevens would be to admit much, so he said nothing.
“If you don’t answer me, Corporal, I will slit your throat from ear to ear.”
He tried to speak but his throat was dry, and only a croak came out. He tried again. “What would you do with my body?”
“If you are the Englishman I think you, the men at dinner will help me bury you and whistle while they do it.”
“There were other men at the second table last night. If I scream, they will come to investigate.”
“They also enjoyed my pie. And ate more of it. Now tell me where Dr. Stevens is. Or I will slit you and be done with it.”
Clearly, he needed to admit to knowing Stevens. The question was how much to admit. “We were on our way here,” he said. “We were waylaid on the road, just after lunch. He was mortally wounded.”
There was a long pause, and he heard her suck in her breath. Finally, she said, “Why didn’t you stay with him?”
“He told me to ride on.”
“To go where?”
A half-truth might do for now. “He gave me the map in the saddlebags, and this town was circled, so I rode here. Yours was the first inn I came upon.”
She said nothing for a moment, as if considering his answer. “I looked at your map. Totowa is also circled.”
“That it is.”
“Tell me why.” She pressed the blade more tightly against his throat. Any harder and he would bleed.
If she is a Patriot, he thought, the truth will surely kill me. If a Loyalist, the truth might save me. He sensed her somehow false to the Patriot cause, but it was in reality nothing more than a desperate hunch.
“My mission is in Totowa.”
He felt the knife ease up slightly. “What mission, exactly?”
“To take George Washington back to England to stand trial for high treason. I am an officer of His Majesty’s Army sent by His Majesty to carry out that mission.” He thought briefly of adding that he could instead choose to kill Washington because his orders didn’t expressly forbid it. But he decided to keep that to himself. Perhaps because he had thought increasingly about that option, and how much easier it would be to carry out than getting Washington back to the ship.
The knife left his throat, but she made no move to untie him. He waited silently, sensing that his life was still in the balance. F
inally, she spoke. “We will go to Totowa together.”
“Will you untie me now, then?”
“We will need to talk more first.”
“What about?”
“About whether you are who you say you are.”
“Who else would I be? I’ve just told you things that would see me hanged from a tree if they were revealed to many hereabouts. I am in a false uniform.”
“You could be an agent of the rebellion, sent to infiltrate the Loyalist resistance. With a faked map and a pretty story.”
He thought for a moment. “I see no way to persuade you by mere words, and a man’s loyalties are hardly engraved on his forehead.” He paused. “Nor a woman’s, for that matter.”
“This is true,” she said.
“So, we are at an impasse.”
She laughed. “Hardly that. You are still tied. I still have your knife, and I can still use it.”
“Have you ever killed anyone, Mary?”
“Not yet.”
“It is a messy business, especially up close.”
“This entire rebellion has proved a messy business. You would not be the first to die messily in it.”
“Have many died hereabouts?”
She snorted. “Ha! Many Loyalists have died. Or lost their property. These so-called Revolutionaries are nothing more than the low classes, those without property who wish to take our property for themselves. Had I let my true feelings be known, we would have lost this inn.”
“We?”
“My husband and I.”
“Where is your husband?”
“He is away. And according to you, dead.”
“Dr. Stevens is your husband?”
“Yes.”
“So you are not Mary White, but Mary Stevens.”
“I was once Mary White. But that matters not. Now tell me more of what you say happened to him.”
The Trial and Execution of the Traitor George Washington Page 4
