Kings Pinnacle

by Robert Gourley

  Samuel tossed his knife haft aside and stood up to face Hugh without a knife. Hugh also groggily got to his feet, still holding his knife and grinning at Samuel like a wolf. Samuel knew it was over; his eyes darted around and he had the look of a frightened deer. Hugh unexpectedly turned and threw his knife over to where Big Mike and Jonas were standing.

  “I wouldn’t want to just slaughter ye like the rat ye be,” said Hugh.

  “That was a mistake, big man,” said Samuel who reached down and pulled a back-up knife from a sheath concealed under his shirt. He then lunged at Hugh before Hugh could walk over and retrieve the knife he had just tossed aside. Hugh easily dodged the lunge.

  Hugh was offended rather than angered by the underhanded maneuver. His innate sense of fair play at first couldn’t comprehend the violation of the unspoken rules. Samuel saw the puzzled look on Hugh’s face.

  “There ain’t nae rules in a knife fight,” said Samuel mocking Hugh and making another straight-on thrust at the defenseless Hugh.

  But Hugh’s mind blanked out the analysis of the situation, and he turned into a bare-handed, cold killing machine. He side-stepped the thrust and used Samuel’s forward momentum and his own great strength to grab Samuel’s arm and pull him forward. As Samuel stumbled forward, passing by him, Hugh grasped Samuel from behind and wrapped his arms around Samuel’s head. With a powerful twisting motion, Hugh turned Samuel’s head past the point where it could turn naturally and broke his neck, killing him instantly. Samuel’s dead body relaxed in Hugh’s grasp and slumped to the ground as Hugh released him. Hugh dropped his arms to his sides and stared at the lifeless Samuel while he regained his breath.

  Jonas and Big Mike walked up to Hugh, standing over the dead Samuel Ruskin.

  “Let’s get this rat buried as quickly as possible,” said Hugh.

  They dragged Samuel’s body into the trees just off the road and dug a shallow grave, dumped Samuel’s body into the hole and hastily covered it in a thin layer of dirt. Then they scattered leaves and brush over the grave to conceal it.

  “Mount up; let’s ride,” said Hugh as he mounted his horse and Big Mike and Jonas followed.

  No one except Hugh, Jonas, and Big Mike would ever know the location of Samuel’s grave. They were the only three men who even knew that Samuel Ruskin was dead.

  * * * *

  Alex

  “We’ve delayed them all we can. Let’s ride back and join the main force,” said Alex to his men.

  Riding north, Alex, Robert, the Longhunter, and his men had first met Clem Jackson and his troops as they south on the River Road to Sconneltown. Alex turned them around and they all continued north. Then they met Hugh, Jonas and Big Mike a short time later. They also turned them around to ride back to the north. Alex’s mission had been to delay General Howe’s army. They had fought the delaying action from south of Sconneltown, where they first encountered the British main forces, all the way to Chadds Ford. But they were not able to slow the progress of the British Army very much because it was moving down the road like a giant elephant. When they arrived at Chadds Ford, General Washington was already making preparations to hold against two fronts. Howe was coming against his right flank, and Lieutenant-General Baron Wilhelm von Knyphausen was crossing Chadds Ford against his main front.

  “There are too many of them. We’re going to have trouble holding them on two fronts,” said General Washington.

  It wasn’t long before Howe’s army broke through the right flank of General Washington’s troops. The general was able to redeploy enough men to hold off Howe long enough for the main body of troops to escape to the northeast. It wasn’t long until the entire Continental Army was in full retreat. General Washington gave the order to reassemble in Chester, Pennsylvania, but the Battle of the Brandywine was lost, leaving Philadelphia exposed to the British Army invasion.

  After winning the battle at Chadds Ford, General Howe marched his army directly to Philadelphia, arriving there a few days after the battle. He wasted no time taking and occupying Philadelphia and making it his winter quarters. General Washington marched his army to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania and occupied it as his winter quarters. After they arrived at Valley Forge, Alex called a meeting with Robert, Hugh, the Longhunter, Big Mike, and Jonas.

  “We are the only ones other than General Washington and Molly who know the fate of Samuel Ruskin. We can still use the Prophet to feed the British false information for a while until they catch on to it, but that’s not why I called us together. We need to rescue Molly’s sister from Samuel Ruskin’s men in Philadelphia.”

  After the battle at Chadds Ford, Alex had located Molly in the camp followers’ tent area and told her about Ruskin’s death. She had responded by collapsing on her cot in relief and then sobbing out the story of her sister Maggie, and the threat to Maggie’s safety that Ruskin had held over her head. They knew that she was sympathetic to their cause. She hated Samuel Ruskin and desperately wanted to free her sister Maggie from the clutches of Samuel Ruskin’s men.

  “Molly can help us, but someone is going to have to slip into Philadelphia with her and save her sister. Who knows the most about Philadelphia?” asked Alex.

  Alex already knew the answer to his question, but he wanted a volunteer rather than have to order someone to go there and carry out the mission.

  “That would be me,” answered Big Mike Finn.

  “Do you think you could get in without being caught by the British?” asked Alex.

  “Aye, of course I can. It’d be as easy as a stroll in the clover,” replied Big Mike.

  “Okay, here’s the plan,” said Alex. “Big Mike and Molly will be disguised as a merchant and his wife. Big Mike will walk into Philadelphia with Molly and go directly to Ruskin’s men who are running his business for him. Big Mike will pose as a man who works for Samuel Ruskin here in the army. Ruskin has sent his man to Philadelphia to collect Maggie because he needs both women to do his dirty work. Ruskin’s men in Philadelphia won’t know that Ruskin is dead, so they won’t have any reason to suspect the ruse. They probably don’t care what happens to the women anyway.

  “Robert, who is an excellent forger, by the way, will write a letter in Ruskin’s handwriting for Big Mike to carry with him as his orders. Big Mike will tell his tale and produce the letter as his authorization to collect Maggie. Big Mike will have Molly with him to point him in the right direction and to help him with any bumps in the road that he might encounter on the way there. After they collect Maggie, they high tail it back here to Valley Forge, so we can figure out how to continue to use Molly and Maggie to feed false information to the British,” said Alex.

  “Shouldn’t be much of a problem,” said Big Mike Finn.

  “Let’s find Molly and see what she thinks about our plan,” said Alex.

  * * * *

  Captain Ferguson

  “We’re going to have to operate on your damaged right elbow,” said the surgeon.

  “You mean it won’t just heal on its own?” asked Captain Ferguson.

  “No it won’t. It has some embedded bone splinters that need to be cleaned out. We also need to repair some of the damage that the musket ball did to the muscles and ligaments,” replied the surgeon.

  Captain Ferguson was lying flat on his back in a hospital in Philadelphia where a team of doctors, both British and American, had evaluated his injury and come to a collective opinion about it.

  “What’s the worst outcome of the surgery?” asked Captain Ferguson.

  “If we find it is bad enough, we might have to amputate your arm at the elbow, but we don’t think it will come to that. As far as prognosis goes, you could lose the use of your arm. However, it could result in a full recovery. We just don’t know at this point,” said the surgeon.

  “When do you want to do the surgery?” asked the captain.

  “The sooner, the better,” replied the surgeon.

  “Okay, but I don’t want my arm amputated no matter how bad the injury is
,” stated Captain Ferguson.

  He knew that an amputation of his arm meant the end of his military career, and he desperately wanted to stay in the army.

  “We’ll do what we can,” replied the surgeon.

  Captain Ferguson survived the surgery and several more follow up surgeries, all of which were performed without anesthesia and extremely painful. It took his arm months to recover. When his arm finally healed, it was permanently bent, and he had limited use of it. But he learned to shoot and wield a sword left-handed and eventually became very proficient using his left hand. It wasn’t long before he was again leading raids against the Continental Army.

  During the time he was in the hospital, his company of green-clad riflemen with their Ferguson rifles had been disbanded. His men were reassigned to regular fighting units. The Ferguson rifle was dropped in favor of the less expensive Brown Bess and other general purpose arms. Most of the Ferguson rifles gathered dust in a British warehouse, and then, after the war, almost all of them would be destroyed. The highly touted and very promising Ferguson rifle would end up having very little impact on the war. But Captain Ferguson’s military career was still far from over.

  * * * *

  Big Mike

  “Halt! Who goes there?” shouted the British Army sentry.

  “Michael Finn of Philadelphia and his wife,” replied Big Mike.

  “What is your business here?” asked the sentry.

  “My wife and I live here in Philadelphia. We have been away on business for the last several weeks. We’re just now returning home this morning. We have always been loyal to the crown,” answered Big Mike.

  “Do you have any weapons?” asked the sentry.

  “No, sir,” replied Big Mike.

  Big Mike did not in fact have a weapon on his person. He and Molly had stopped before they approached the British Army check point, and Big Mike had asked Molly to hide his pistol under her skirts. She hid his pistol and without a very close personal search, no one could tell that Molly was carrying the pistol. The sentry asked Big Mike to open his coat and gave him a very casual pat down search. After the sentry searched Molly’s handbag, he was satisfied that they were not a threat.

  “If you have been away several weeks, where is your baggage?” asked the suspicious sentry.

  “We shipped our belongings ahead so that we would not have to deal with them while traveling,” answered Big Mike.

  “You may pass,” said the sentry, who was now anxious to get back to his fire and his comrades.

  After much deliberation and argument with Alex, Robert, and Hugh, it had been decided that rather than have Molly and Big Mike try to sneak past the guards into Philadelphia, it might be best to use a ruse and a more direct approach. That was when Robert and Alex came up with the idea of a businessman who had left on a business trip before the occupation by the British Army returning to Philadelphia. Big Mike and Molly, who were dressed like a middle class merchant and his wife, walked through the British check point and into the city of Philadelphia.

  After they had cleared the check point and were safely out of sight of the sentries, Molly gave the pistol back to Big Mike. Mike made sure that the pan was primed with gunpowder. He replaced it in his belt, to the side, where it could not be seen with his coat buttoned and covering it.

  “That was easier than I suspected it would be,” said Molly.

  “Yes, it was, but I don’t think the British care too much about one man or one woman when there are hundreds of Americans here in Philadelphia. Let’s see if we can find Maggie and get out of Philadelphia as quickly as possible,” said Big Mike as the couple walked further into the heart of Philadelphia.

  “Let’s stick to the plan and find an inn that’s open, so you will have a place to stay while I go get Maggie,” continued Big Mike.

  “I want to go with you to get Maggie,” said Molly flatly.

  “That wasn’t the plan that Alex and Robert came up with for us to follow. Remember the meeting we had with them to plan this rescue?”

  “I know it isn’t, but I think we’ll have a better chance if I am with you, since I have seen the men before. And when Maggie sees me, she will understand the plan and will want to come with me,” replied Molly.

  “I don’t know if your presence will help or hurt, but rather than stand here in the middle of the road and argue with you, let’s get this over with.”

  “You won’t regret it,” said Molly.

  “That’s what they all say,” replied Big Mike with a grimace.

  They walked past the heart of Philadelphia to the docks, where Samuel Ruskin’s warehouses were located. Molly led them to the small offices in the back of the warehouse where Samuel’s henchmen could usually be found. Big Mike unbuttoned his coat so that he could have ready access to his pistol, opened the door and walked in, with Molly following him. They strolled up to a man who was working at a desk writing in a ledger book.

  “Who’s in charge here?” asked Big Mike.

  “Who wants to know?” asked the man, looking up from his work at Big Mike and Molly. The man recognized Molly immediately, but tried to act like he didn’t know her. Big Mike had detected that the man’s eyes had widened just a bit when he looked at Molly, so he knew he was in the right place.

  “I work for Samuel Ruskin, and he has sent me to collect a young woman named Maggie,” Big Mike stated emphatically.

  “I don’t know any Samuel Ruskin or any Maggie,” said the man, who was still sitting at the desk.

  “Well, in that case, I guess I’ll have to go back and tell Major Ruskin that no one here in his warehouses knows him,” said Big Mike as he turned around to walk out of the room.

  “Hold on there, pilgrim,” said the man. “Let me check with the warehouse straw boss.”

  The man stood up from his desk chair and walked out of the office and into the warehouse in search of his superior.

  * * * *

  Alex

  Valley Forge was a cold and snowy winter camp. The officers made every attempt to train the men, but the weather didn’t always cooperate. Most of their time was spent trying to stay fed and stay warm.

  “Lieutenant Mackenzie, I doubt that this war will be won in the northern colonies. A turning point must be achieved in the southern colonies to turn the tide of this war in our favor. I hope this doesn’t come as too much of a shock to you, but I want you to transfer to the southern colonies and help create that turning point in the war for me. I know that I am asking a lot of you, but we all must sacrifice if we are going to win this war. I think that you are just the man for this job,” said General Washington to the stunned Alex.

  “What do you mean by a turning point, sir?” asked Alex.

  “I’m not sure right now, but I think that you and I will know it when it happens,” replied the general.

  “I’m going to discharge you from the northern Continental Army here at Valley Forge, Lieutenant Mackenzie, but before I do, I am going to promote you to the rank of captain. I want you to travel south and then west to the frontier to Fort Patrick Henry or to Fort Watauga. There are groups of men located out there who are good fighters, but they need direction. They also need a burr under their saddles to get them moving in this war. When you get there, I want you to help organize them, direct them, and spur them on. We need to get those men into this fight more than they have been in the past.

  “Your discharge papers will show that you are leaving the northern Continental Army as a captain, and I expect the military commanders out there to honor your rank in the southern Continental Army. Take your brothers and Alexander Glendenning and any others that you wish to take with you. I would like to keep Michael Finn here with me when he gets back from Philadelphia. I want him to take over Major Ruskin’s role as the Prophet and continue to feed the British false information for a while. As soon as the British catch on to the false Prophet, I will either keep him here or send him south to you. Your other men that you do not take south with you will be reas
signed to other units,” said the general.

  “I would like to take Jonas Dunne and his partner Clem Jackson with me also,” said Alex.

  “That’s fine; I will include their discharge papers along with the others,” said General Washington.

  “It may take you a while to gain the confidence of these fiercely independent men on our southern frontier, but they are very important to our cause of liberty. I think that they have a bigger role to play in our struggle than they have had so far. I wish you luck, Captain Mackenzie,” concluded General Washington.

  “Thank you, sir. I will carry out your orders to the best of my ability,” replied Alex as General Washington rose out of his chair to shake hands with him.

  Alex left General Washington’s tent and sought out Robert and Hugh to tell them the news. He found them trying to stay warm by a fire, near where their horses were tied.

  “It looks like we are headed south out of Valley Forge for the winter,” said Alex to Robert and Hugh.

  “I hope it is warmer wherever we are going,” replied Hugh.

  “When do we leave?” asked Robert.

  “As soon as we can round up Alexander, Jonas, and Clem; they are going with us,” replied Alex.

  “Where exactly are we headed?” asked Hugh.

  “Fort Watauga, I think. General Washington mentioned Fort Patrick Henry also, but I think I like the sound of Fort Watauga better,” answered Alex.

  “And where is that?” asked Hugh.

  “It is located in western North Carolina on the frontier. We need to pack up our gear and ride west out of here as soon as possible. We should be able to pick up The Great Wagon Road somewhere near Lancaster and follow it down to Big Lick. Then we will have to travel west to get over the mountains and to Fort Watauga. But on the way, we’ll need to stop at Williamsport and pick up my wife,” replied Alex.