The Judge Hunter

by Christopher Buckley

  “You . . . killed him!”

  “Yes,” Koontz said with an air of mild annoyance. He knelt and wiped his knife on the dying man’s undershirt.

  “But . . . why?”

  “To make look good your escape. Come.”

  Balty backed against the wall.

  “Come.”

  “No,” Balty said. “I think not.”

  “If you stay, you will hang for his murder.”

  “I didn’t kill him. You killed him.”

  “But who will believe? Come. We will meet with your friend. To make the trade. You for the bird.”

  Balty pointed at the dead guard. “Huncks would never have agreed to that.”

  “Do you want to be free, or to hang?” Koontz put the gun to Balty’s chest.

  Balty followed him out of the cell, stepping around the widening pool of blood. Koontz paused at the door to the parade ground, pale in the moonlight. He took off his white scarf and wrapped it around Balty’s neck and lower face and pulled down the brim of his hat.

  “Don’t speak. Stay behind close.”

  They made their way toward the gate of the fort, Balty fighting the urge to cry out and run.

  The gate was open. Sentries slumped against the wall. They straightened on seeing Koontz. He and Balty walked out onto the broad way.

  Koontz turned left toward the fort’s north bastion, protruding from the rampart like a giant arrowhead.

  The street was deserted at this hour, but for two men sitting on the ground across the way, backs to a wall. One was asleep. The other stood and watched. He and his companion had been there for days, waiting with mounting impatience for a rendezvous now much overdue. The man nudged his sleeping companion, who got to his feet. They set off, following.

  Koontz and Balty rounded the corner of the bastion. There was a field between the fort and the water, with two windmills, blades at rest in the windless night. Waves lapped gently against the shore. Koontz kept close to the fort wall as they made their way toward the west bastion. Above on the parapet Balty saw the glint of moonlight on bayonets.

  “Where are you taking me?” Balty whispered.

  “Quiet. To boat.”

  They heard a sound behind them. They turned and saw the two men. Koontz’s hand went to his pistol. The men came closer.

  “Koontz.”

  So this was Koontz’s trap, Balty thought. The sight of Repent filled him not with fear but regret at his lack of a weapon.

  “Jones?” Koontz whispered. “What you do here?”

  “What I’ve doing these past two days. Waiting.”

  “Now is not good time.” Koontz gestured at the parapet.

  “Why didn’t you come? I’ve been waiting.”

  “It’s not the time, Jones!” Koontz hissed. “Later we talk.”

  Repent’s gaze was fixed on Balty. He came closer. Balty smelled rancid raccoon and eagle fat.

  Koontz put up a hand. “No.” The Indian kept coming. He said to Jones, “Owanux.”

  Jones peered at Balty and grinned. “Well, now. This was worth the waiting. Well done, Koontzy.”

  “No, no, no,” Koontz said. “He’s not for you.”

  Repent walked behind Koontz and Balty.

  “Don’t worry, Koontzy,” Jones said. “There’ll be more money.”

  Koontz drew his pistol. “No! There is an arranging.”

  “What about our arranging?”

  “Not for this.”

  “How much do you want for him, then?”

  “Look, the soldiers. If I give order, they shoot.”

  “I shouldn’t worry. You Dutch fuckers can’t shoot for shit.”

  Koontz cocked the hammer of the pistol and aimed at Jones. Repent plunged his knife into the small of his back with such force Koontz was propelled forward.

  “Bewakers!” Guards!

  Two soldiers appeared above.

  “Wie is er?” Who’s there?

  Repent yanked his knife out of Koontz and turned and lunged at Balty. Balty dodged the thrust and leapt toward the staggering Koontz.

  The sentries opened fire. Musket balls thumped into the ground around them, kicking up dirt. Reevaluating his opinion of Dutch sharpshooters, Jones lumbered off as the soldiers reloaded.

  Balty grabbed for Koontz’s pistol as the wounded Dutchman fell to the ground. He rolled over. Repent stood over him. Balty fired.

  Orange and yellow flamed from the muzzle, blinding him. The air filled with smoke. Repent was gone. On the ground beside Balty, Koontz groaned and went still. Balty saw the glint of more bayonets on the rampart above.

  “Wie is er?”

  “Wat is het wachtwoord?” What’s the password?

  Balty was still on his back. The windmill was fifty feet away.

  “Wat is het wachtwoord?”

  He rolled onto his stomach and got to his feet. A musket ball ripped through his left ear. Balty stood still, one hand to his ear, the other raised in surrender.

  * * *

  A quarter mile away in the middle of the East River, Huncks, Thankful, and Johann bobbed in the current, listening to the sound of gunfire.

  Captain Underhill had intercepted them on their way to the boat. There was a scene: words exchanged, voices raised, pistols drawn. Tragedy was averted by the intervention of Winthrop, who gave his reluctant assent for them to proceed. Underhill stormed off, muttering about the appalling lack of discipline.

  An hour after the last gunshots, they knew Balty would not make the rendezvous. Huncks slumped in his seat and put his head in his hands.

  The bird, perched on Thankful’s arm, put his beak to her cheek, glistening wet in the moonlight.

  – CHAPTER 45 –

  This Englishman, Not Gone

  Peter Stuyvesant stared mumpishly across his desk at the bandaged and manacled man surrounded by four scowling soldiers. He’d been rousted from his bed at five o’clock by a banging on the door.

  How, Old Petrus wondered, could it have gone so calamitously wrong as this?

  A guard dead, his throat slashed. Koontz dead, killed by some unknown attacker. Johann, now surely gone forever. And this Englishman, not gone.

  At least Koontz—the duplicitous bastard—was no longer alive to tell everyone that the Governor-General of New Netherland had tried to exchange a confessed English spy for his parrot.

  But this was thin consolation beside the loss of Johann. What fate awaited him at the hands of the Englishman’s confederate? Old Petrus shuddered at the image of Johann, plucked bald and shivering beside a pile of his beautiful feathers, waiting for the axe stroke.

  He must speak with the Englishman alone. Find out what he knew.

  “Laat ons.” Leave us.

  The sergeant protested that the prisoner was dangerous. He cut Jan’s throat! Stuyvesant glared. The soldiers withdrew.

  “So,” Stuyvesant sighed. “Now I must hang you.”

  “What? Why?”

  “A guard is dead.”

  “Koontz killed him.”

  “Koontz is not here to say yes or no. Anyway, for killing a guard while making escape, the penalty is death.”

  “See here. Koontz cut his throat, then threatened to shoot me if I didn’t go with him.”

  “You were forced to escape? Well, it’s original, such a defense.”

  “It is not a defense! It’s the bloody truth! One minute, I’m asleep, the next, Koontz is cutting the man’s throat and waving his pistol at me. Then out of nowhere Jones and the Indian—bodyguards of the regicides you insist aren’t here—appear and demand Koontz hand me over. He refused and the Indian ran him through his kidneys. And your fusiliers opened fire and managed to miss them and shoot off my damned ear. So I fail to find anything in this deplorable sequence of events to justify hanging me.”

  Stuyvesant believed the Englishman. He wasn’t the type to slash a man’s throat. Damn Koontz! Why didn’t he just knock the guard unconscious? He’d fatally complicated things by killing the man. No
w he had no choice but to hang St. Michel. The men would mutiny if he didn’t. But Johann . . .

  Stuyvesant suddenly saw the solution: sentence him to hang, but defer the execution. Explain that he must consult with Amsterdam. If the Englishman was, as he claimed to be, a Crown commissioner, there was a diplomatic dimension. Let six months pass. By then no one would care. And announce Amsterdam was commuting his sentence to servitude for life in the plantations. Ship him off and be done with him. Rather elegant.

  But what about these regicides and this Jones and the assassin Indian? He couldn’t have them roaming his streets. He would make inquiries. Order a search.

  Stuyvesant was mulling all this when Balty said, “Koontz told me I was being exchanged for your parrot. I can only assume this whole business had your approval.”

  Stuyvesant groaned. This Englishman was no simple fool. He was the Platonic ideal of the Fool. He’d just signed his own death warrant. How could he commute his sentence now? He’d spend the rest of his life telling everyone that the Governor-General of New Netherland had connived to exchange him for his pet bird.

  The Englishman continued prattling. It was like listening to fistfuls of pebbles hurled against windows.

  “You may rest assured, sir,” Balty was saying, “that I shall be taking this matter up directly with Colonel Nicholls, when he arrives—with his fleet.”

  Stuyvesant looked at the clock. It was just after six in the morning.

  “I think you will not have this opportunity.”

  “Why not?”

  “Unless he arrives before nine.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Nine is when we do the hangings. It’s the custom. But I will tell Colonel Nicholls about your concerns when he comes.”

  “Look”—Balty smiled—“let’s start over, shall we?”

  Stuyvesant put on his spectacles, dipped a quill in ink, and began to scribble.

  Balty said huffily, “You might pay me the courtesy of not doing paperwork while we’re discussing my hanging!”

  “It’s the warrant for your hanging. Do you wish a priest?”

  “Certainly not!”

  “I will have sent to you some food and wine. Do you want laudanum? It makes calm.”

  Balty had only one card left to play, but it felt like treason to tell Stuyvesant Colonel Nicholls’s real purpose. And how would that help? Old Petrus would only be further enraged. Downing’s own signature was on Balty’s commission.

  “Well, what about your bird?” Balty said. “You’ll be getting feathers until Christmas—enough to stuff a pillow.”

  Stuyvesant finished scribbling. He reached for the silver bell on his desk. Soldiers hauled Balty off, manacles jangling.

  – CHAPTER 46 –

  A Fine Summer Day

  By nine o’clock in the morning, the 27th of August, Anno Domini 1664, had blossomed into a glorious late summer day of sunlight sparkling on water, clouds scudding across a cerulean sky, and a breeze to snap and flap the Dutch flag above the fort.

  Even the gulls seemed aware that this was a day to soar in the zephyrs above rather than scavenge for wharfside orts. A day all residents of New Amsterdam could congratulate themselves on their excellent good fortune to be here, specifically here, on their island amid such a lush and providing new world.

  The breeze, from the west, carried the sound of drums across the East River to the Breuckelen shore, where Huncks and Thankful had been keeping watch.

  Through his spyglass, Huncks saw the procession emerge around the corner of the fort and make its way toward the gallows at the tip of the island. Thankful, watching through her own glass, was first to spot Balty, hands tied, walking between the two lines of soldiers.

  Balty’s head was covered in white. Bandages. Huncks lowered his spyglass.

  “It didn’t work,” she said.

  “No,” Huncks said. “Appears not.”

  They heard shouting behind them. Men were running out of the farmhouse, pointing.

  “There!”

  * * *

  Stuyvesant stood on the rampart of the fort watching the procession below. Reaching the gallows, the two columns of soldiers formed a square around it. The Englishman didn’t falter. His bearing was dignified. Stuyvesant wondered if it was the laudanum.

  The hangman led the Englishman by the arm to the foot of the ladder. The drumming ceased.

  Stuyvesant heard shouting. The crowd below had turned from the gallows toward the harbor. He saw the four ships. He raised his eyeglass, saw the English colors.

  The Englishman was mounting the ladder. The captain of the guard looked up at Stuyvesant, waiting for his signal.

  What to do? He had authority to execute a spy. Not only a spy, but one whose attempt to escape had resulted in the death of a guard. This Colonel Nicholls had no right to intervene in a lawful execution.

  Stuyvesant sighed. But there was the question of manners.

  Greeting a foreign dignitary by hanging one of his countrymen—within view—was not, however one might justify the thing, particularly good manners. And greeting a foreign dignitary with four warships of thirty-six guns each and five hundred men-at-arms was not particularly wise.

  Old Petrus stood on the rampart and considered. The Englishman had now reached the top rung of the ladder. The noose was around his neck. The hangman awaited the Captain’s order; the Captain awaited the General’s order.

  Stuyvesant said to his adjutant, “Stoppen.”

  The adjutant relayed the order to the Captain, who conveyed it to the hangman. The hangman said something to the Englishman, who collapsed. A frantic scene ensued as the hangman and soldiers tried to lift the Englishman, the noose still around his neck.

  They put him on the ground. Was he dead? Stuyvesant groaned.

  The hangman slapped the Englishman on his cheeks. The Englishman’s eyes opened.

  Stuyvesant gave the order to get him out of sight. When Colonel Nicholls weighed anchor and sailed for New England to conduct his review, then the execution would proceed.

  Stuyvesant handed his spyglass to the adjutant and stumped off to see about welcoming his latest English hests.

  As he descended the ramp, a solider ran up. He handed him a piece of paper.

  “Heneral,” he said, “urgent message, from your Mevrouw.”

  Stuyvesant growled, “Urgent?” This was no time for domestic messages. He stumped on, clutching it in his fist. Halfway across the parade ground he considered: Judith had never sent him a message marked “Urgent.”

  He unfolded it and read.

  “Johann is terug!”

  * * *

  Mevrouw Stuyvesant’s message that Johann had returned was to be the Governor-General’s sole happy moment on August 27th and all the days to follow, for the next message he received was from Colonel Nicholls, commander of the squadron of warships now anchored within cannon range of his town.

  Nicholls was not inquiring what time dinner was served, or what dress was appropriate. Neither was he complimenting the Governor on the tidiness of New Amsterdam. No. The message informed Stuyvesant that “in his Maj.ties Name, I do demand the Towne, Scituate upon the Island commonly knowne by the Name of Manhatoes wth all the forts there unto belonging, to be rendered unto his Maj.ties obedience, and Protection into my hands.”

  It stressed that the King had no desire for an “effusion of Christian blood,” but made clear that failure to comply would result in “all the miseryes of a War.” He signed it, “Your very humble Servant.”

  While Stuyvesant fumed about the perfidy of Ambassador Downing and the credulity of the West India Company, a boat set off from the Breuckelen shore, where a thousand men could be observed mustering: Pell’s Westchester Trained Band and various associates of Captain Underhill’s. Cincinnatus had put aside his plow.

  The boat flew a white flag. In its bow was a man Stuyvesant knew well: Winthrop of Connecticut. Accompanying him was a man Stuyvesant also knew—the Englishman who had
been his dinner guest at Bouwerie Number One, who’d come to his chambers at the fort to present terms for an exchange of prisoners.

  England’s terms were unusually, indeed astonishingly, generous. Nothing would change for the inhabitants of New Amsterdam other than their flag. The town’s name would now be New York, in honor of the King’s brother, James, Duke of York and Albany, Lord High Admiral. All that had been New Netherland was now his.

  Stuyvesant tore up the letter. This precipitated an uproar among the people he called his “subjects.” They desired no miseryes of a war or effusion of blood, Christian or otherwise. They felt no fealty toward the West India Company. What had it done for them? Even Stuyvesant’s own son declared against him. The fifteen hundred inhabitants of New Amsterdam confronted the prospect of English rule with a collective shrug.

  In a rage at this betrayal, Stuyvesant stumped back up to the rampart of his fort, where cannons were loaded and aimed at Nicholls’s flagship, fuses hissing.

  Old Petrus had no fear of death. If another war with England was to be inaugurated, then why not here, why not now? He looked out on the harbor, his harbor, and contemplated his next move.

  Time stopped. The citizens of New Amsterdam held their breath as their leader decided whether to let slip the dogs of war.

  Stuyvesant wondered—a war for what? For a people who had now openly declared against him? The consequences of firing the first shot would be dire. Horrific. An English siege against the town would succeed, inevitably. The cobbles of New Amsterdam would run red with blood. How would history judge a governor who brought about sack and carnage for . . . nothing other than his own pride?

  If these people of New Amsterdam, this rabble, were not, after all, his subjects, why subject himself to infamy, for their sake? This was no band of brothers, only a congeries of mixed races and religions. This is what came of Holland’s policy of tolerance: weakness and irresolution. They were not worthy of death on the field of Mars. To hell with them. To hell with the West India Company. It was over.

  * * *

  The negotiations would continue for weeks, but for now the moment of maximum danger had passed. There would be no war.