The Silver Bullet

by Jim DeFelice

  The deal concluded, Jake leaned forward.

  “Are you related to my good friend, George Herstraw?” he asked. “He owns land south of Bennington.”

  “I think not,” said the man. “I come from the Herstraws near White Plains.”

  “Is that where you’re going?”

  Herstraw nodded reluctantly. “How did you know my name?”

  “I overheard you talking before,” lied Jake. “And I though you looked a bit familiar.”

  The pair engaged in a short conversation, Jake explaining that he, too, was on his way south to see relatives. The exchange of falsehoods complete, the American looked up to see his friend van Clynne entering the inn. No doubt he’d been detained by some business deal, Jake suggested to Herstraw.

  “The man would see his mother’s dishes if there were profit in it,” he added.

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “You’re not familiar with Squire van Clynne?”

  “I am a stranger here.”

  One of the farmers stood up and announced it was time to reform the convoy. The group rose and began filing toward the door, where the innkeeper stood with his palm upturned and his thick arm out, collecting payment for lunch and beer.

  It was only then that Jake remembered he’d given up the last of his money. His repast was only an English shilling or the equivalent – a fair and inexpensive price, surely – but he was as likely to find a coin in his money belt as he was to find the treasure of Captain Kidd.

  Herstraw chose not to hear Jake’s request for aid, and so Jake turned to the only other man here he knew.

  “Squire van Clynne,” he said solicitously. “Good sir, lend me the price of dinner and I will repay you in Albany.”

  “Albany, what place is that?”

  “Fort Orange,” said Jake, remembering van Clynne’s habit of calling everything by its old Dutch name.

  “We’re not going to Fort Orange,” answered van Clynne. “It’s on the opposite shore.”

  “I’m good for the shilling,” said Jake. “Surely you know that.”

  “It seems to me that I do not know that,” said van Clynne. “You had money in your possession before, and now have squandered it. Does that make you a good risk? I think not.”

  “Claus.”

  “What would I have for collateral?”

  “Collateral? For a shilling?”

  “Collateral, sir. I never consider a loan without first considering the collateral.”

  Jake dug through his pockets. “My pocketknife,” he said. “It’s a Barlow, and worth a pound or two at least.”

  “Hardly,” said van Clynne, not even bothering to look it over. “Do you have a watch?”

  “No,” said Jake. “Here, take the knife.”

  “I’ll set my own terms, if you please,” said van Clynne. “Let me see your hunting knife.”

  “That’s not for sale at any price,” said Jake. “I’ve borrowed it from someone, and expect to return it.”

  “And you won’t return my shilling, eh?”

  “I am good for a shilling, damn it. This knife is worth considerably more.”

  “Give me your money belt?”

  “My money belt?”

  “If you purse is empty, you’ve no need for it, have you?”

  It was difficult to argue with such logic, especially as he feared Herstraw might decide to get a head start on the company and bolt down the road. Jake pulled the belt off and held it up before van Clynne – who would have a difficult time getting it around his thigh, let alone his belly.

  “Thank you very much, sir.” Van Clynne grabbed the belt and flipped the innkeeper a shilling.

  Jake hurried out the door into the sunlight – and the outstretched arms of several members of the local militia.

  “Jake Gibbs, I arrest you on charges of spying for His Majesty the King.”

  There was a note of reverence in the soldier’s voice when he mentioned George III. Jake did not have time to point out how unseemly that was coming from a patriot, however, for a chain was immediately flung around his shoulders and he was tugged to the ground. His protest was cut off by a thick fist that slammed into the side of his head and knocked him unconscious.

  -Chapter Fourteen–

  Wherein, Leal le Couguar is rejoined for a brief but sorrowful interlude.

  Convinced that the information Jake had given him about the band of Mohawks and British loyalists held the key to his wife’s whereabouts, the woodsman Leal le Couguar set out to find them.

  The immense difficulties involved in traversing the wild country between Lake Champlain and the upper Mohawk Valley, not to mention the problem of confronting the group single-handedly, did not trouble him. If anything, he felt a welling confidence – the kidnappers had traveled far to elude him, but the gods had brought him a messenger to point him in their direction. For Leal interpreted Jake’s sudden appearance on the road as nothing less than divine intervention, and trusted now that his mission would end with success.

  When he reached the shore, he took stock of his gear and found Jake’s discarded suit jacket. Leal had never seen such fine material sewed into a coat, and wondered why his friend had left it.

  Perhaps if Jake had explained himself fully, perhaps if duty had not prevented him from telling Leal the full nature of his mission, the trapper’s logic might have taken a different turn. For though Leal was superstitious, still he was a generally practical man and did not ordinarily interpret everything he saw or heard as a supernatural sign. But as he pondered his friend’s strength and apparent wisdom, the ease with which they had talked together and the bond that had so quickly developed between them, the temptation to conclude that Jake was a personal embodiment of spirits Leal had heard about since childhood grew stronger and stronger. Blame isolation and loneliness as much as superstition; in any event, Leal pulled on Jake’s coat, content to wear it as a token of good luck and friendship – and maybe an invocation of supernatural powers.

  If there were unworldly powers at work, they were not beneficent. For Leal’s arrival on shore and his contemplation of the jacket was observed by Major Christopher Manley, the agent of the Secret Department assigned to assassinate Jake.

  Manley had spent the past two days following Jake’s trail. Though it had grown cold on the west shore of the lake, the agent had no doubt he would come across the American if he persevered.

  Many miles north, the limp body of an old farmer lay near an empty cart, attesting to the major’s brutal manners. Before his neck had been snapped, the Frenchman had told Manley to be on the lookout for a half-breed trapper. The jacket Leal slipped on told him he had found the right man.

  The woodsman would be a more difficult interview than the farmer – Manley took his pistol from his saddlebag, checked to make sure it was loaded, and then advanced on him.

  Pistol is a misnomer. The gun he presented to the Minqua had the heft of a thick blunderbuss, specially adapted for Manley’s treacherous work. It contained nearly a pound of different sized balls, and its short barrel flared in a way that guaranteed the shot would spread in a deadly pattern. IT was good only for close work – a man standing directly in front of the pistol at twenty-five feet had a favorable chance of being missed by most of the rapidly spreading shot – but at close range it was more effective than an eight-pound cannon.

  “Good afternoon,” said Manley, stepping out of the trees at the top of the lake embankment just a few feet from the half-breed. “I wonder if you could tell me how you acquired your jacket. It’s quite a handsome coat.”

  Leal feigned not to understand. He spoke a few words in Minqua to throw the stranger off.

  “You use a dead tongue,” responded Manley, as if he not only knew the words, but had been expecting them. “I will not stand out of your way, no matter how you express it.”

  “What is it you want?” responded Leal in English. He hoped his hard manner would hide his shock. Never had he come across a white man familiar
with his words.

  Manley smiled. “Perhaps I have been searching for the last remaining Minqua.”

  “I am not the last,” said Leal. “But it is rare to find someone who knows of my people.”

  “We can talk of your legends later – where did you get that coat?”

  “I bought it.”

  “Where is the man you bought it from?”

  Leal did not answer. The man’s extreme height, his thin arms and legs, the odd prominence of his eyes – Leal must be forgiven if he wondered for just a moment if another spirit had taken human form and stopped him in the woods.

  His amazement cost him dearly, for in the few seconds that he contemplated the possibility of unearthly spirits had involved him in their own drama, his attention lapsed. The assassin saw his opening and left forward to grab him by the neck, wrestling him to his knees with barely a struggle.

  Just as Leal began to react, he felt the cold metal of Manley’s pistol poke against the bottom of his chin.

  “Did you leave him on the opposite shore?” Manley demanded, rocking the gun back and forth so it’s mouth sucked at Leal’s flesh.

  “Yes,” said the trapper.

  “Where is he headed?”

  Suddenly Leal felt ashamed, as if he had betrayed his companion with his one-word answer. To his mind, he had faced a major test of courage and failed.

  How hard are the ways of the woods; how difficult the code of survival. What a civilized man might interpret as simple prudence, or, at worst, expedience, Leal saw as a fatal disgrace. His only choice now was to attempt to recoup his honor by a show of strength – and desperate action. He twisted suddenly and threw his elbow into Manley’s stomach, diving for the ground as the British agent’s gun went off.

  “Two of the balls went through Leal’s left leg, burning their way through the flesh and shattering his bones. The pain was surprisingly light, though when he tried to stand up he tumbled down immediately. He crawled forward, reaching toward his gear and the tomahawk the lay six inches away.

  He was just extending his fingers toward it when Manley clamped down on his hand with a boot.

  “I would have killed you anyway, Indian, but now I can take pleasure in doing so.”

  Leal looked upward – not in the direction of his tormentor, but toward the trees. In that last moment of his life, he caught sight of a small squirrel chattering in a branch. He realized in that second that Meeko his wife had been killed by her captors – a possibility he had never allowed himself to consider, thought it had always been the mostly likely outcome of her trail. He realized, too, that he was on his way to meet her, in some happier existence. And so he smiled as Manley brought his knife blade down to slash the lifeblood from this throat.

  The savage’s grimace so haunted the British agent that he contemplated burying him, an honor he would ordinarily never accord an enemy. In the end he decided he hadn’t the time, and contented his conscience by turning the body face down on the ground. Then he took the trapper’s canoe and pushed it out onto the water. It meant abandoning his horse, but the animal had been effectively lamed by his ride here anyway.

  Why had his prey gone to the other side of the lake when Ticonderoga was only a few miles south of here? Manley reasoned that it must be because Jake was trying to intercept Herstraw. That meant there might still be a chance to catch him before he gave his superiors details about the pending invasion.

  In truth, Manley agreed with Burgoyne that it did not matter much if the Americans knew exactly what they were faced with. It might even help to intimidate them – the forces they had chosen to oppose were overwhelming, and realizing that could only lead to despair. For they were, after all, facing the greatest army they world had ever known; no amount of foreknowledge could help in a wrestling match with a vastly superior opponent.

  Manley’s real goal was the elimination of Jake Gibbs. If he could accomplish that before the spy delivered his intelligence, so much the better. He pushed his long, slender arms to row harder, the anticipation of his enemy’s demise a powerful and refreshing fuel.

  -Chapter Fifteen-

  Wherein, Jake is mistaken for a traitor, and suffers the consequences.

  Jake came to in the back of a wagon, jostling against the side board like so many pounds of wheat. Trussed in heavy chain and rope, he felt like a prize pig put up for a holiday feast.

  “Who the hell is in charge here?” he shouted from the bottom of the wagon. When that brought up no response, Jake added a few more curses and increased the volume of his complaint.

  A Hindu hymn would have had more effect. The wagon crashed merrily along, either by design or chance finding the largest ruts in the road. The shocks were amplified by Jake’s chains, and the coarse floorboards rubbed at the few parts of his body that were not covered by restraints.

  It took several minutes, but he finally managed to leverage himself into an upright position against the side of the wagon. The scene would have been comical had he not been in the middle of it.

  The entire countryside had joined in the capture of the supposed Tory spy. Closest to him was a ring of militia in the haphazard but universal dress of the American irregulars, their only sign of service a green sprig stuck in their caps. Each of these men clutched a rifle or musket, mostly in rude aim at his person.

  Next around was a group of older men and boys. The few who didn’t carry rifles had weapons such as pitchforks, though some made do with axes and an older gentleman carried a large if rusty sword.

  The next ring belonged to the women. There were fewer rifles among this group, but several pistols; wooden staves made up the majority of arms, and at least one broom could be seem. Finally came the children and the dogs of the village, yelling and yapping and barking, no doubt confused as to whether they were going to a picnic or a prison. All told, one hundred souls were giving Jake an escort fit for the king he was accused of working for.

  Despite their large numbers, they were making exquisite progress; Wood Creek, a tributary of Lake Champlain that would take them to Fort Ticonderoga, already lay in view.

  “Good citizens,” said Jake, “your patriotism cheers me. But you are making a dreadful mistake. My name is Lieutenant Colonel Jake Gibbs, and I am on a mission for General Schuyler.

  This drew titters from the crowd.

  “Good citizens, hear me!” Jake tried again, rallying his best speaking voice. “A British spy is getting away even while we amuse ourselves with this diversion.”

  “Damn traitor,” said one of the men, “we ought to tar and feather him, then take him to the halter.”

  So much for a career as a politician.

  “Who’s in charge here?” Jake demanded.

  “You’d best keep your mouth shut,” said one of the militiamen. “Several of these folk have lost relatives in the war, and they would like nothing better than to take retribution. You’re lucky we’re talking you to the fort.”

  Jake fumed, but there was little he could do. Surely his identity would be cleared up at Ticonderoga.

  There was one slight difficulty he would have to overcome, however. Jake’s everyday coat had buttons pressed with the Masonic symbol used by members of the secret service to immediately identify one of their brethren; a high-ranking intelligence officer would recognize them immediately. But his coat was lying more than a hundred miles to the north, in Marie’s bedroom.

  The symbol was impressed on one other item that ordinarily he carried with him at all times – his money belt.

  It is inaccurate to say that Jake cursed van Clynne a hundred times as he was transported from the wagon to a small, flat-bottomed boat on the creek. More likely the oaths numbered in the millions, though one or two thousand were saved for the militia officer in charge of this procession, and perhaps one thousand found their way to General Schuyler, and his assistant Flanagan for having him march all the way to Canada and back in record time, only to let him be arrested by their own troops.

  The commander
of the guard who met the boat had to step back two full steps under the force of Jake’s tongue lashing.

  “I demand to be released. I am an officer in General Greene’s command and was in the middle of a vital mission for General Schuyler. Let me go or I’ll have you trussed and stood on your head for six months.”

  Typical of the patriot army, the officer’s retreat was no sign of surrender. He didn’t even bother with an answer, much less a counterattack, turning instead and walking toward the guardhouse. Jake’s legs were tied in a way that made it difficult for him to stand, let alone walk; he was pushed from the boat and fell flat on his face. Before he could even attempt to roll to his feet, he felt himself lifted and bodily carried to a jail cell.

  The hours he spent in solitary confinement worked wonders for Jake’s temper. Before being locked in, he had been merely livid, ferociously upset and greatly insulted at being mistaken for Tory scum. Now his wrath had truly continental dimensions, erupting in volcanic waves that would have impressed even Achilles, whose own well-nursed grudge had destroyed the Trojan’s hero Hector and launched Homer on the way to epic stardom.

  Still, a man with a profession such as Jake’s often finds himself in situations where great self-control is called for. He develops, therefore, a veritable arsenal of temper-saving devices and tricks, all designed to cool the hot vapors of passion and let reason prevail. Mental diversions, exercises, complete flights of fancy – Jake employed them all, and was in reasonable control when he was finally led, chained at hands and feet, to the building where he was to be examined. In fact, he found himself nearly philosophical.

  “You’ve been most businesslike,” he told the sergeant as he was led to the interrogation chamber. “I won’t hold this against you when I’m released.”