The silver bullet ps-1

by Jim DeFelice

  "We agreed on nothing," said Gerk, once more brandishing his knife. "Six guilders is robbery. You are a liar and a thief and a cur, and I am going to kill you where you sit."

  There was only so much van Clynne could take, even from a fellow countryman with a knife and an evil glint in his eye. To be called a liar and a thief and a cur in the same sentence called for immediate action.

  After another sip of ale.

  Van Clynne took up his tankard slowly, managed a strong if slow pull, and then splashed the remainder of its contents into Gerk's face. This distraction gave him the advantage he needed to upset the table with his prodigious waist. Gerk was taken by surprise and fell to the floor, where the sharp bounce of his head off the hard wooden plank immobilized him.

  Pohl, meanwhile, jumped back out of the way. He was not so reasonable as van Clynne believed, however. In fact, as van Clynne leaned over Gerk's prostrate body to retrieve the knife, Pohl drew a pocket pistol from its hiding place at the back of his coat and aimed at van Clynne.

  It was a small weapon twenty years old, in mediocre repair. The ball it held was no more than the size of a small bumblebee. Nonetheless, even a bee’s sting, properly aimed, can be fatal, and van Clynne presented a large target of opportunity. An immense target, actually. And difficult to miss. But Pohl missed nonetheless, thanks to the timely intervention of a stranger, who had been sitting nearby with his lunch. He threw Pohl’s arm upward and punched him in the side. The pistol flew into the air, where the stranger promptly snatched it.

  “ Nasty little thing,” said the man, looking at the gun. “Shouldn’t go waving these in public; they often misfire.”

  The stranger’s quip as well as his exploits will readily identify him to all who have already made his acquaintance — the interloper was none other than Lieutenant Colonel Jake Stewart Gibbs, having stopped here for a bit of lunch after riding all morning and most of the previous night.

  The proprietor of the inn appeared in the doorway, wearing the universal look of dread innkeepers all over the world put on when they ask the question: Who will pay for this mess?

  Van Clynne went to the keeper and whispered an answer so eloquent that the man promptly escorted his two assailants to the door.

  “ I hate to resort to violence,” complained van Clynne to the man who saved his life. “But I will not be called a cur, even by a fellow countryman. It will cost me seventy skins, but — well, had they been any good, undoubtedly he would have sold them much earlier; the season in truth is gone. Frankly, I deal with him only because I’ve a soft spot for his wife and children. It’s a disease, compassion; it robs a businessman of good sense.”

  “ No doubt.”

  “ Your name, sir?”

  “ Jake Gibbs. And yours?”

  “ Claus van Clynne,” said the Dutchman with a flourish. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  As Jake bowed his head in answer to van Clynne’s gesture, the Dutchman fixed on Jake’s tricornered hat and frowned. Such hats were common among English-bred colonists; surely their creases conformed to some irregularity within the skull. His opinion of the stranger dropped appreciably, though he was careful not to share it.

  “ Thank you, sir, for your assistance,” said van Clynne gracefully. “I am obliged.”

  “ No problem. Always pleased to help a fellow traveler.”

  “ Yes, yes.” Van Clynne harrumphed in the direction of the pocket pistol which Jake still held in his hand.

  “ I think not,” Jake replied, understanding that van Clynne wanted it.

  “ Thieves come in all shapes and sizes these days,” grumbled the Dutchman. “The whole world is going to hell.”

  “ I didn’t say I was keeping it. Just that I wouldn’t give it to you.” He carefully uncocked the miniature lock and unscrewed the barrel to remove the bullet. “Buy me a drink?”

  “ Buy you a drink?”

  “ I did save your life.”

  “ Yes, well, perhaps he would have missed.”

  Jake tapped the belly in front of him but said nothing, motioning to the chair instead and calling over the innkeeper for two ales.

  “ On me,” said Jake. “You’re a trader?”

  Van Clynne made a face immediately. “A trader, sir, is a man only shortly removed from the lowest form of life scuttling about the forest floor. I am a merchant, a freelance proprietor, a good man of business and a man of standing in the world, I daresay.”

  “ I see.”

  “ I deal in commodities and services. At present, I am going north to arrange for the purchase of some good Canadian wood, as well as some other odds and ends. I have many interests. Upon occasion I even consent to handle a few odd furs, although as I have said, it is mostly a matter of charity, vainglorious charity.”

  “ You are going to Canada?”

  “ I may.” Van Clynne eyes his drink cautiously, but then lifted the tankard and drained off a good portion.

  “ You have the papers that will take you past the patrols?”

  “ I have the right to come and go as I please,” said van Clynne haughtily. “I am a businessman. I have rights of passage from both Carleton and Philip Schuyler.”

  “ I’m going that way myself. Perhaps you can guide me.”

  “ Guide? The road is well-marked.”

  “ I’ve never been over it.”

  “ Hmmph.” Van Clynne finished off the rest of the ale, then pushed the tankard forward for a refill. “Twenty crowns,” he said after the girl had taken it off to the kitchen.

  “ For?”

  “ Twenty crowns to take you across the British lines with me. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  “ Perhaps.”

  “ Ha! You don’t have the proper papers and are afraid of being apprehended — most likely by the patriots, who would tar and feather your for breakfast.”

  Van Clynne quieted as the girl approached with his refill cup. He waited until she had left before speaking again.

  “ You’re a Tory, aren’t you?” said the Dutchman under his breath.

  “ Actually, I’m on a business trip, as you are,” said Jake smoothly. “My family is in the apothecary trade, and we are looking to buy rattlesnake essence from the Indians to the north. I have the requisite papers.”

  “ I quite mistook you, sir,” said van Clynne, rolling his eyeball up and down like a periscope surveying the countryside from the safety of a walled fortress wall. “It will cost thirty crowns to take you north with a story like that. Plus expenses. No paper money, please.”

  “ It’s not such a bad story,” said Jake.

  “ Ha!” Van Clynne’s laugh momentarily filled the inn before he returned his voice to its strategic softness. “I should like to hear it told at Ticonderoga. The first thing I would do, if I were you, would be to lose that hat. Get something sensible like mine. Beavers are meant to be round.

  “ Ten crowns,” said Jake.

  “ Thirty-five.”

  “ You’re moving in the wrong direction.”

  “ I’m Dutch.”

  “ I’ll give you fifteen when we reach Montreal.”

  “ Five now, and twenty at Crown Point.”

  The price for a canoe ride from Albany to Crown Point — before the war — was about five New York pounds, just a bit over what van Clynne was asking for a shorter journey that would not include the amenities or expenses of transportation. The reader may draw his or her own conclusion as to how hard a bargain the Dutchman was driving.

  “ Twenty in total,” said Jake. “At Montreal. I have a friend there who will lend me the money. I’ve barely enough shillings now for the trip.”

  Van Clynne’s eye once more slipped into periscope mode. A frown came to his face, and he stuck out his hand to seal the deal.

  “ I can spot them a mile away,” he said after they had each had a sip of beer. “That’s your black stallion with the fancy bags out there, isn’t it? I saw it on the way in and said to myself, now there’s a
Tory.”

  Jake smiled but said nothing. The rattlesnake story — which had some vague elements of truth to it, since his family was in the apothecary business — was indeed pathetic, but it was supposed to be. This Dutchman was perfect, completely of a type most useful to a man in Jake’s profession. The more you puffed up their pride and let them think they were brilliant, the more they played the cooperative fool. Van Clynne was just the person to help him avoid notice as he crossed the border.

  “ This beer — the brewer is not Dutch, I daresay,” grumbled van Clynne. “There was a time when every wife knew how to make ale, and every wife’s ale was nectar to the angels. Now — pfffff. Taste this. Taste it.”

  “ You’ve finished your whole tankard already.”

  “ Due to thirst only. I would not have another. No, no, under no circumstances, though my thirst does remain quite strong, sir, now that you mention it.”

  “ I didn’t mention it. And I’m not going to buy you one.”

  Van Clynne frowned, realizing there was more to this Mr. Gibbs than his silly hat or lame story foretold. Still, twenty crowns was twenty crowns, especially in British currency.

  “ I suppose your friends will be waiting for us outside,” said Jake, draining his cup and rising to resume the journey. He was anxious to get moving.

  “ I doubt it,” said van Clynne. “I know these fellows well. They’re cowards. Must be in the next county by now.”

  But Jake proved to be the better judge of character. Pieter Gerk, armed with a fresh knife, accosted them halfway between the door and the paddock where the horses were tied. His sidekick Pohl was conspicuously absent.

  Jake ducked just in time. Pohl missed and flew through the air spectacularly, though he was in no position to admire the trajectory. Jake reached up and knocked the man’s foot as he passed, altering his path enough to change what would have been a four-point landing into a one-point crash, that point being his head.

  But Pohl was a robust man, with an extremely thick skull. Somewhat to Jake’s surprise, he managed not only to get up, but to punch him in the stomach when he approached. Jake fell back and pulled a small black pouch from under his belt where it had been secreted. As Pohl charged blindly toward him, he stepped aside and clamped his hand with the bag’s contents on Pohl’s nose.

  This miscreant stood straight upright, temporarily paralyzed by scorpion powder. A flick of Jake’s wrist sent him in a heap to the dust.

  In the meantime, van Clynne had stirred himself, knocking Gerk back against the tree and once again separating him from his knife. If the Dutchman was portly, he was spry for his size; his frame held a good deal of muscle along with the fat.

  Jake grabbed the knife from the ground and surveyed the situation. He was sorry to have used the last of his paralyzing powder, but it would have lost its potency soon anyway.

  “ I suppose we should give them their weapons back,” he suggested.

  “ Give them back?”

  “ Yes,” said Jake. “I wouldn’t want to be called a thief.” He bent the polished but poorly tempered steel into a curve with the flat of his palm. The display of arm strength had the intended effect on Gerk — his shudders made it clear he wouldn’t bother following, though Jake thought it prudent to toss the two halves of the pocket pistol and some shillings in the dirt for their troubles, just to show there were no hard feelings.”

  “ Must be an English knife,” said van Clynne as they rode away. “They’re making the damn things so cheap these days.”

  “ They certainly are,” said Jake.

  Two hours later Jake began to question whether he had indeed chosen the right guide. He was by now well ahead of schedule, thanks to the remarkable shortcuts van Clynne was showing him. But this advantage in speed was coming at a heavy price — the Dutchman had a penchant for discourse.

  Not discourse, precisely — complaint. His entire philosophy might be summarized thusly: The world had gone to hell in the past fifty years.

  Actually, there were hints that the decline extended to the collapse of the tulip bulb market, but Jake didn’t care to interrupt the flow of words for an exact date. His companion was clearly a man who saw the tankard not only half empty, but one the verge of rusting through. Every portion of the world was in sorry shape — just now van Clynne was complaining that the fir trees were not nearly as green as they used to be.

  His own thoughts wandering as a matter of self-preservation, Jake nearly missed the import of van Clynne’s sudden harrumph.

  He looked up to see three men on horseback blocking their path. Adrenaline flushed into his body as he realized they were the same men — two whites and an Indian — whom he had unsuccessfully followed yesterday evening. Providence had delivered them to him.

  It had also placed rifles in their hands, aimed sharply in his direction.

  “ Good sirs,” said van Clynne lightly. “How can we be of assistance?”

  “ You can start by handing over your worldly possessions,” said the pockmarked man — the same demon who had ordered the child’s death. His deerskin hunting shirt, fringed collar and cuffs showed signs of many hard scrapes.

  His white companion was similarly dressed, though his clothes were considerably newer and not so sorely tried. He wore the look of a man who disdained these transactions.

  The reader will remember that the previous day Jake had guessed that this man was a British officer. Today, Jake was at leisure to construct an entire narrative for the trio: The pockmarked man was a Tory loyalist and criminal, who thought the entire adventure was an excuse for robbery and murder. The second white was a British spy fresh from England, learning that the woods had their own cruel morality. The last of the group was an unattached Iroquois warrior, seeking glory but unsure of his course, let alone his companions.

  While his eyes were glued to the trio, Jake’s hands were slipping unseen behind his coat to grasp the Styan handgun secreted at the back of his saddle. His two other pistols were in plain view at the front; loaded as always, they would be useful in their turn.

  “ Now, now, gentlemen,” said van Clynne, his voice three times as cheery as it had been at any moment since he had left the tavern. “We have a letter from General Schuyler himself, a good Dutchman, guaranteeing us free passage.

  Van Clynne, noting the smile and disdainful frown, hastened to add, “And his worship, Governor Carleton, likewise has granted us permission to travel. So sirs, I beg you — “

  “ On your knees when you beg,” said the pockmarked man.

  “ Claus van Clynne goes on his knees to no man!”

  “ On your knees you swine.” The pockmarked man lifted his light cavalry musket toward van Clynne. His companions followed suit.

  Frowning and grumbling heavily, van Clynne shifted on his horse, leaning over to comply.

  “ You, too.” Pockmark gestured menacingly at Jake.

  Jake nodded meekly, and leaned to the side of his horse as if dismounting. But as he did so, he swung the pistol up and got off a shot that added a fresh mark to the Tory’s face, this one brighter red than the others, tinged around the sides a dark black. It was the devil’s own sign, reserving the murderer for the special place in hell put aside for those who kill children.

  As he dove to the ground, Jake pulled a fresh pistol from the saddle holster. He tumbled behind his horse, springing to his knees and pushing the gun forward as he pulled its trigger, throwing its bullet toward the disguised British officer.

  In retrospect, Jake decided that it might have been better to miss, or merely wing the man, since he had already dropped his weapon in fright. The officer might have provided some information on British intentions and, at the very least, explained the details of his mission here. But there is no taking back vengeance once unleashed — the ball found its mark square in the man’s chest.

  Jake had no time to second-guess himself at the moment, for he was now on the opposite side of his horse from his remaining gun. More critically, he was dir
ectly in the aim of the Iroquois brave.

  In the next moment Jake heard a loud whizzing sound that he mistook for the approach of a bullet or maybe an angel, come to lead him to the river Styx.

  But he was mistaken. Completely intact and no nearer to his Maker than he had been for many months, Jake rolled over to see the Indian flat on his back, his weapon unfired and his skull punctuated by a large tomahawk.

  A tomahawk? Where had that come from?

  This will cost you an extra five crowns,” said van Clynne, walking over.

  “ What for?”

  “ Physical exertion.” The Dutchman lowered himself with great difficulty and retrieved his hatchet from the brave’s skull. “And just after I’ve had it sharpened, too,” he said, glancing at the blade as he wiped it clean on the dead man’s leggings. “You know, there was a time when a blade stood up to usage. Now they are much too easily dulled.”

  Chapter Five

  Wherein, the story proceeds northward, with various and sundry discussion of miscellaneous items, including the fine art of hatchet throwing.

  Jake was anxious to continue on his mission, but prudence as well as duty required him to give the men a decent burial, even if they would not have returned the favor. Before laying them in their graves, Jake rifled their clothes as discreetly as possible, looking for papers or anything else that might give him more information about the task they had been assigned, if any. The only thing interesting he found was a Hawkins and Wilson smoothbore flintlock pistol. The British-made gun was a handsome weapon — General Washington himself owned a pair.

  It was much too useful to be buried with the dead men — Jake stuck it in his saddlebag.

  The Dutchman said very little as they went about the grim task of burying the men. Jake wondered what van Clynne made of them and their identities, whether he considered them mere bandits or disguised rangers, as Jake did. But there was no way to ask without inviting suspicion about his own identity and purpose.