The silver bullet ps-1

by Jim DeFelice

  "It's quite all right," said Jake. "I know what you need. But I worry that you may be depending too much on one man, and perhaps the wrong one at that."

  "Nonsense. If you can't pull this off, no one can. I have a fresh horse waiting out front. You'll find some money, papers and a map in the saddlebags. Anything else you need will be readily provided."

  Jake Stewart Gibbs stayed silent for a minute, his eyes fixed on the hands of the study's ornate grandfather clock. It was just about to strike midnight. Neither he nor the colonel spoke as the last seconds clicked off and the room shook with the deep, sonorous tones.

  A condemned man sticking his tongue out at the executioner would find more mercy than Jake if he were captured in Canada. Even disguised, he could not count on passing unrecognized in Montreal or Quebec, as he so often did in New York City; not only would many of the local inhabitants remember him, but his profile was all too familiar to the governor himself.

  Undoubtedly General Washington had weighed these dangers and decided to risk sending him nonetheless. The war stood at its most critical juncture. Trenton notwithstanding, the winter had been a difficult one. To lose Ticonderoga — let alone Albany — would be a crushing blow.

  "I hope this is a good horse you've gotten me," said Jake when the chimes came to an end. "The last time I went to Canada I ended up traveling half the way on foot."

  Chapter Two

  Wherein, the journey begins, with sad leave taking of the widow Sarah and a misplaced confidence in the state of local security.

  Flanagan didn't expect Jake to leave until morning, but the agent was one of that small class of men who can go for days with only a few winks of sleep. He did not intend to delay his start with anything approaching a full night's rest, and therefore launched his mission the second he left the Pastures, setting out on the best road north.

  Which, not coincidentally, was the same road he had traveled to meet the colonel and which, not surprisingly, led him straight through Albany to Sarah's father's inn, The Golden Peacock.

  Some day, Jake thought as he got off his horse, he must ask Mr. Roberts what the point of a golden but nonetheless monochromatic peacock would be, since the bird's whole reason for existence was the rainbow of colors at its tail. He hoped tonight, however, to avoid the opportunity to raise the question. Mr. Roberts was a powerfully long-winded speaker, and the explanation for the tavern's name would undoubtedly fill the sails of a fleet's worth of frigates. It would also make it difficult to sneak upstairs and take proper leave of Sarah, as he was honor-bound to do.

  Jake was in luck, in a way — the front door was bolted, with a long board across it to prevent entry. This meant that all inside had gone to sleep, the Albany innkeeper taking precautions that once would have been shown only on the frontier.

  The building was simple if sturdy, constructed of two stories; the room where Sarah would be waiting was in the rear. This could be easily reached from the back of Jake's new horse, a fine, athletic and, more importantly, very tall beast. There were but two complications: First, the glass window at the outside and then the secured shutter inside would have to be opened as quietly as possible. Second, and the reason stealth was required, Sarah's two sisters would be sleeping with her, and might cry out in alarm — or perhaps jealousy — if woken.

  The horse Flanagan had provided was undoubtedly fleet of foot, but it turned out to be a less than ideal ladder. Though hitched to a nearby post, the animal shifted uneasily as Jake rose on its back. He cursed silently as he tried to steady himself against the side of the building with one hand and pry open the window with the other.

  Fortunately, the laws of physics regarding levers and pulleys were working in his favor. Jake's long hunting knife made as a handy and efficient a machine as any the Romans had ever used, and the ropes inside the window casement handled their job with equal vigor. The window flicked upwards like a startled bird taking flight. Jake took this as a good sign — Sarah had no doubt greased the way for him.

  With such optimistic portents, he did not fret when the horse darted to the side, leaving him hanging by his fingers on the sill. The animal was, after all, tied and would be waiting when he returned.

  The bricks in the building were smoothly laid, with mortar placed smartly and quite thickly; a toehold was impossible. No matter. Jake had entered many a window at a greater height under much more dire circumstances, without the promise of so great a reward — placing the knife in his teeth, he pushed with his arms and shoulders to snatch his knees up on the ledge, using such strength that a lesser house might have fallen to the ground. Kneeling inside the window on the casement, half inside the house, Jake found the shutters inexplicably fastened. This was but a minor annoyance; once more the knife did good service, slipping the wooden fastener with such ease that Jake, in a more leisurely moment, would have considered whether the deer-antler handle housed a beneficent spirit.

  No time for that now. Desire beat a steady drum of advance in his chest as he peeked inside. The room was dark, and the light from outside dim, the moon obscured by clouds; Jake crouched in the window for a long minute before making out the outlines of the bed. Sure enough, there were three figures there, each shadow a barely distinguishable lump of covers and nightcaps.

  One of the sisters was snoring almost as thickly as a man; the sound was fortunate, as it covered the soft creak in the floorboards when Jake snaked inside. But even with his eyes fully adjusted to the interior light, he couldn't distinguish one lump from the other — which was Sarah?

  He was just about to prod the body closest to the window, figuring that his lover would have posted herself there so she could hear his approach, when he was interrupted by a loud hiss from behind. Spinning quickly, he dropped to his knees, afraid that he was about to have a long and not altogether comfortable interview with Sarah's mother.

  A second hiss cured him of such misconceptions. It was the sound a snake would make, yet it was the tone of an angel.

  "You almost woke my father," said Sarah when he joined her in the hallway.

  "Your father?"

  "He and my brothers always sleep together when there are many guests. Didn't you hear him snoring?"

  Jake made his apology in kisses. They tiptoed downstairs to the large front room, snuggling in blankets before the fireplace. Their communication was wordless, their sentiments expressed solely in the soft, steady crush of two bodies falling together.

  They were so absorbed in each other that they missed the stirring of a patron in a nearby chair. The man had found no room upstairs; whether he thought the figures before the fireplace were real or part of a pleasant dream, he said nothing more than a mumbled, "this is why we must be free," and dropped back off to sleep.

  At length, Jake prepared to take his leave. He watched as Sarah got up to poke the embers and throw another log on. The small flash of flames sent a red light into the room, illuminating her naked body with a fine glow. For a moment, and a long moment indeed, he regretted that he had been called to duty.

  "I'll come with you," offered Sarah, so loudly that he had to put his finger to her lips.

  "It's much too dangerous."

  "It's dangerous for you," she said. "I will be able to breeze in and out like a bird."

  "No. Carleton is sure to have troops haunting the woods. Besides, I may have to pretend to be a traitor to get into Canada, and I doubt that's a disguise you could stomach."

  She continued to protest, but there was no question of Jake's taking her with him. The most he would promise was to return as quickly as possible.

  "And in one piece," she instructed.

  "And in one piece," he answered, kissing her.

  "Without a cannonball in your side," she added, kissing back.

  "Without a cannonball in my side." Another kiss.

  "And don't disguise yourself as a Mohawk this time." A longer kiss.

  "I can't make that promise." Two pecks. "I hate the Iroquois, but there are advantages to look
ing like one."

  "You don't look like a savage." A long, deeply planted kiss.

  "I can if I have to."

  "No tattoo then," she said, surrendering.

  Jake remembered the banter eight or nine hours later, well north of Albany and halfway to Saratoga, when he noticed small but distinct hatchet marks on some fir trees off the road. They were blazes such as those made by Indians traveling through unfamiliar territory. Leading well off into the woods along one of the few uncultivated areas near the road, they immediately struck him as suspicious. The cuts, which Jake got off his horse to examine, were not very fresh; the sap had stopped running. But neither were they so old that they could be attributed to last year's campaigns, and it seemed exceedingly unlikely that they would have been made during the winter, when the terrain was so much more obvious.

  There were, of course, many Indians in the area, and some were friendly to the patriot side. Schuyler's ability at managing relations with the local tribes was not debatable; he had kept many Indians neutral, or at least nominally neutral. Still, the British had alliances with many natives, especially the fierce Iroquois tribes. The services the King expected of his allies included scouting behind enemy lines; this might be evidence of a recent foray.

  Even if the danger was not immediate, the blazes were a bad omen. Jake's journey would take him through country where the patriots were not nearly so populous nor well established; if Indians were active here, they might be on the warpath further north.

  Natives were only one worry. Flanagan had provided Jake with the official papers needed to pass through the American lines, as well as forged ones for Canada. But this was not to say his passage would be easy; strange travelers were always regarded with suspicion no matter what authority they cited, especially as one neared the battle lines. Worse, Jake's most promising cover once he reached British territory would be as a deserter to the Patriot cause; in order to propagate it convincingly, it was best to at least hint at it south of the border, in hopes any local spies would carry the news northward.

  While local Tory sympathizers might be accepted with nothing more than threats and a few rocks through their windows, patriot wrath was readily unleashed on those with unfamiliar faces. Jake felt confident he could work the game successfully; he had done so often in the hellish no man's land of Westchester, known euphemistically as the "Neutral Ground." But his situation would be considerably improved if he could find a merchant authorized to travel between the two sides; he knew from his experience in New York and the Jerseys that such persons had various ways around meddlesome authorities. Finding them was not necessarily easy, however, nor was it without its own dangers, since many of these entrepreneurs turned out to spend the better part of their days working as robbers and cutthroats.

  Except for his notation of the marks along the trees, Jake's ride to Saratoga was uneventful, the various fords passed with nary a trifle and the mid-spring day turning positively pleasant. The horse Flanagan had provided proved a more than suitable mount and brought him northward at a good pace, never seeming to tire and needing only an occasional drink of water to sustain its strength.

  Had Jake been a tourist and his pace more leisurely, he might have stopped and stared a good long while at Cohoes Falls, where the water was gushing with a force that would have surprised Noah himself. The cataract spanned 1,200 feet, a whale's mouth multiplied by ten. The roiling water made the sound of a brigade's worth of artillery, stemming a redcoat charge.

  The ferry above the falls was a very small boat that accommodated only Jake and his horse. The ferryman asked no questions of him once the six shilling fare was presented. The horse made the only comment — a low neigh of appreciation that he was avoiding the chilly water and its stiff current.

  The land around Saratoga was rich farmland, well cultivated. General Schuyler had a large tract there inherited from his father. Tenant farmers leased farms from him, paying for the privilege of sweat with a quarter or so of their yearly produce. The practice was widespread in New York, inherited from the Dutch domination; Schuyler was but a small player in it. Still, Jake thought it unseemly for a patriot to act as a medieval lord. Neither New England nor Philadelphia had any similar institution, and Jake felt his revulsion of Schuyler returning as he rode.

  Jake skirted Saratoga, moving gradually westward as he rode north. Experience told him he could make better and safer time on the secondary routes, even though they were neither as good nor quite as direct as along the river. With little traffic and less people to raise questions, he was freer to let his horse find its speed. Occasionally he would leave the road and proceed over open fields, the horse seeming to know by instinct the best route.

  There is an undeniable law of nature that opposites attract. And so it was in this case — the very pleasantness of the day, the light, summer-like breeze and the fresh, green spring scents around him conjured up not easy thoughts but hard memories of the last time Jake had traveled to Canada, by a much different route but with roughly the same destination. Then the surrounding fields and woods had seemed dark and foreboding, the cries of the birds, above all the owls, trying to warn the patriot army to turn back.

  The plan to take Canada had been ill-conceived. It was not so much the idea but the timing; they came too late in the year. The failure of the French Canadians to rally against the British and join them in the great experiment of freedom was bad enough, but the coming on of winter, the approaching new year — and the mandatory end of most of the army's enlistments — combined for certain destruction.

  General Montgomery had not seen it. Such a great leader, such a powerfully insightful man in every other respect, and yet he had not seen the guarantee of failure.

  Or had he? Did he decide to gamble nonetheless, roll the dice in hopes of winning a wild victory that would surely have ended the war?

  There was an even more weighty question, at least as far as Jake personally was concerned: Why had he not succeeded when he tried to talk the general out of the assault? Clearly, Montgomery had trusted his assessments and advice during the campaign, and yet he rejected them at the moment when they were most critical. Had Jake simply failed to make his points clearly enough? Was he somehow responsible for the defeat?

  The moody recriminations clouded Jake's vision, and blinded him for a long while to the curl of smoke that rose around the farm in the distance, an ugly black vine tangling upwards, not from a hearth but from staved-in roof beams crying with the unstaunchable sorrow of death, unjustly delivered.

  By the time Jake realized what it was, he had already unconsciously turned toward the farm and urged the horse to a gallop, though even the animal must have known it was too late.

  Chapter Three

  Wherein, Jake weighs the value of discretion and decides to hell with it.

  The Indians who lived in the areas near Albany were predominantly Iroquoian and had long had contact, for better or worse, with the white man. The predominant group was the Six Nations, a strong confederation whose main tribe near Albany was called by the English "Mohawks," a name which also applied to the river and the valley that ended at the falls Jake had so recently admired.

  "Mohawk" was a somewhat unfortunate though accurate appellation, applied not by the tribe itself but by Algonquin peoples nearby with whom they had warred for many years. Loosely translated, it meant "man eaters." The term was literal, and while it failed to capture the nuances of the religious ceremonies that involved the act, it was nonetheless an appropriate indication of the ferocity of the Mohawk world. Their universe was different than the whites'; dreams and nightmares were still literally true, and the dead stepped seamlessly from one life to another, status in the next determined largely by bravery and stoic fortitude in this one.

  Jake was looking at one of their nightmares now. A small farmstead, set in a small hollow amid no more than twenty cleared acres a good mile from the main road, had been ambushed and set ablaze by raiders within the past day. Little more than
a cottage, the house had only one hearth and chimney; its stones towered now above the caved-in roof timbers. The front and far side wall were both tumbled down and burnt. A jagged edge of the back wall remained, three-quarters the height it had stood until yesterday. A quilt still hung at one end, and next to it, a sideboard with a set of earthen dishes untouched by the flames. A broom was propped on one side, its straw head barely singed, as if waiting for the owner to set about the daily chores.

  This had been a very poor farm, with no outbuildings to speak of, a lean-to a few yards from the house apparently serving as the barn. That too had been destroyed, pulled down and flattened by fire. The settlers' well stood between the two structures. Jake eased his horse gently toward it, knowing what he would find there.

  The hole was narrow, with an irregular wooden wall at the top. An arm of the dead man's body had caught on a side board, hanging the body in a pose that made it seem as if he were trying to climb up. His face gazed toward heaven, frozen in the shape of his dying thought — Why?

  Jake led his horse back to the house and dismounted, tying it to a board. The beast protested loudly and shook its head, as if warning Jake away from the ghosts that surely inhabited the site. Its cries were so adamant he feared it would harm itself; Jake undid the rein and brought it over to the remains of the lean-to, where the animal consented to wait more calmly, commenting on the scene with sad, soft nickers.

  The dead man was not quite middle aged. He had been robbed of his shoes, but otherwise his clothing was so poor and tattered that it had obviously been left by the raiders as worthless. Nor had he been well-fed — Jake had no trouble lifting him and carrying him to the front of the house.

  Several large stains of blood marked his chest. He had been scalped; a piece of skin flapped back on his skull as he was set down. Jake had to tilt the head to get the skin to stay in place. He closed the man's eyes, and said a short, simple prayer he'd been taught as a youngster.