The Golden Flask ps-3

by Jim DeFelice

  "Here are my pistols," said Jake, presenting the bag to Daltoons. "You will have my opponent's second examine them, and then load them."

  "Where is Doctor Clynne?" asked Daltoons, removing the gun case from the sack. He looked for some sign from Jake as to which gun to favor — or for anything that might indicate his plan.

  "Doctor Clynne?"

  "Our surgeon," prompted Daltoons. "I believe he went to fetch you this morning. He claimed to know all your haunts."

  "I'm sure he'll turn up," said Jake, adding in a whispered aside that the bullets must be handled gingerly. He turned to Bauer. "A nice morning to die, isn't it? Gray and overcast?"

  The Tory gave him a grimace. To his credit, there was no show of fear in his face. "Etiquette requires that you be given a chance to renounce your insult."

  "Hardly," said Jake. "A kiss is a kiss and can never be denied."

  Lord William's hands began to shake as he took up the copper bullet to load his brother-in-law's gun. Daltoons reached over and caught the ball as it slipped toward the ground.

  "What sort of bullets are these?" Bauer asked.

  "I would not shoot you with common lead. A man of your circumstances deserves finer metal. If you object to copper — "

  "The right of weapons is yours," said Bauer. He reached angrily for the gun Daltoons had originally loaded for Jake.

  His brother-in-law put out his hand to stop him. "Perhaps it was not meant as an insult," said Lord William. "This is a silly matter for two civilized men to fight over. No offense was taken."

  "Stand out of the way, William." Bauer sneered at the pistol's lack of ornamentation, then sighted down the barrel. The gun was lighter than the one he had practiced with and promised an easier kick.

  Jake remembered Bebeef’s advice that his victim's coat be removed to insure the poorly propelled bullet would prick the skin. He took off his own jacket, hoping it would entice Bauer to do the same.

  It did not.

  He turned to Daltoons. "It will look as if we are dead. Make an excuse to take both of us with you, and send Lord William back by himself."

  "Easily accomplished," said Daltoons. "But are you going to be shot as well?"

  "Alison is by the boat," Jake whispered, turning around as he heard Lord William behind him.

  "I beg you, sir, to renounce this foolishness."

  "I renounce nothing," said Jake. "It is an excellent day to die!" He took his pistol and began walking toward Bauer. "Is that the suit you're to be buried in? Where would you like the bullet hole?"

  "Braggadocio ill becomes you."

  "Hold my gun," said Jake, holding the pistol out to him. "Go ahead, I trust you won't shoot me before the proper time."

  Unsure what his opponent was up to, Bauer took the weapon cautiously. Jake promptly stripped off his vest coat, exposing his white shirt.

  "I want you to have a bright target. You'll excuse the tear in the back; a rebel and I recently had a disagreement. You will note where the coward struck me, but he paid for his impudence."

  Jake grabbed his gun back and began walking to his mark. This last bit of bluster finally achieved its purpose. Bauer, deciding he could not be outdone, took off his own outer clothes.

  "Shall we draw lots for the first shot?" Jake asked.

  "The first shot is mine, by right," said Bauer. "If we are to observe the London etiquette."

  "In that case," said Jake, "I choose position. Start here, three paces, and fire."

  Concern flickered across Bauer's face. "I believe the general prescription is for a wider distance."

  "I will concede five," said Jake. "Unless you are afraid?"

  Bauer turned abruptly, aiming his gun toward the ground. "Your second may count us off."

  Jake nodded at Lord William. "Recommend me to your wife. I wish her Godspeed back to England."

  Lord William hesitated. He had lost his son a few months before, and now confronted the possibility of losing his brother-in-law. While he had not liked Bauer over-much, the man had always been decent to him and was, after all, his wife's brother. It was his honor at stake, in a way, as it was his wife who had been insulted, yet the entire matter seemed foolish and blown considerably out of proportion. But it was beyond his power to stop any of this; he nodded weakly and slipped to the side.

  "Start, Captain Daltoons, before the insult is compounded," demanded Bauer.

  "Wait!"

  The men turned and saw Alison running from the ridge, her dress flowing behind her. Daltoons guessed from the frown on Jake's face that this was not part of the plan. The lieutenant reached to his back and took hold of the small pistol hidden there.

  "Cousin, I wish to give you a kiss," said Alison, running forward.

  Hoping the dress and dim light would keep the Tories from recognizing her, Jake stepped forward and was rewarded with a quite accomplished kiss.

  "I might have known," he whispered. "Will you never follow my orders?"

  "Three boats approaching," she answered. "There are many redcoats in the second and third."

  "There's no need for concern," Jake announced loudly, turning away. "We will be done here quickly."

  "What is it?" asked Bauer.

  "Nothing. Our soldiers are patrolling below. Begin."

  "There is a prohibition against dueling, and we should obey the law," suggested Lord William, seizing on the pretext.

  But this attempt was brushed away by Bauer, who started the count himself. "One."

  "Redcoats," Alison hissed to Daltoons as the two men began to pace, counting off their steps together.

  "Too late to worry about them now," growled Daltoons. "Where the hell have you been? I sent out all my men looking for you."

  "With Jake, of course."

  "Two."

  There is little a duel can be compared to. Stripped of its haughty speeches and overbearing emotion, it is merely walking and counting, turning and shooting.

  When Bauer reached four, Jake became aware of every wound and bruise in his body. His muscles ached with the great fatigue of the night and indeed the entire war. He felt every abuse he had subjected himself to, every deprivation. His right arm and shoulder were especially grieved with their fresh wound; the muscles tensed and it took great effort to turn and present himself at five.

  He had sheltered a vague hope that Bauer might accept rules allowing him to fire first, or at least simultaneously; even the bravest man must flinch a bit at the moment of death.

  Less than ten yards separated them. Bauer took a breath and pulled the trigger, and Jake felt the air reverberate with the sound of his pistol.

  He thought Bauer had missed. Then he felt his chest tightening, and darkness clawing at his eyes. As his tongue thickened in his mouth, he jerked his arm up and just managed to squeeze the trigger.

  The ball struck the Tory in the meat of his right shoulder, away from the heart. The impact pushed Bauer's chest back and straightened his head; he smiled, took a labored breath, then collapsed slowly to the ground.

  As had Jake, a few yards away.

  Though she knew the plan well, Alison rent the air with a terrified scream, a wail that under other circumtances might have woken the dead. In this case, the two men remained crumpled on the hilltop, oblivious to the commotion that suddenly broke around them. Daltoons's men appeared in bright red uniforms, bayonets drawn, charging from the woods under the direction of a medium-sized man whose markings of sergeant were matched by the self-important strut so typical of the species. He ordered his companions about with a haughty snap and a variety of curses, just the thing to direct privates and confuse officers with. "What the hell is this, subjects of the king shooting each other?" said the sergeant, moving toward Daltoons. "Speak, sir."

  "You are in the habit of addressing a captain in such a manner?"

  "I will damn well address who I want as I want," answered the sergeant tartly. "Declare yourself."

  "Captain Mark Daltoons, His Majesty's Sixth Grenadiers." The unit
was, of course, an invention, but it came from the disguised Libertyman with so much pretense that a colorful and glorious history was fully implied. "I am in charge here."

  "Like hell. I have a report of rebel activity, and am to secure the area."

  "You are speaking damn saucy to an officer, sergeant," said Daltoons, thinking his subordinate extending the part they had sketched. Alison's sighting prompted Daltoons to push the episode quicker than rehearsed.

  "This looks to me to be a duel, sir, explicitly prohibited. A punishable offense, I might say."

  "Talk to me privately, sergeant," said Daltoons. "That is an order."

  "I'm not sure you are in a position to order anyone about," answered the sergeant, who nonetheless retreated a few steps with Daltoons — and was almost cuffed.

  "Take Lord William back if he won't go on his own."

  "We're letting him go? I thought we were arresting them."

  "Do as I say. The real British are coming. Get Buckmaster the hell out of here. Jake wants him to think his brother-in-law is dead. Go now, before we're all shot."

  The sergeant looked back. "Jesus, they look dead to me."

  "Just go, you turnip-eating fool!"

  "I would not use such intemperate language, captain," answered the sergeant.

  As the redcoat captain and sergeant were having their tete-a-tete, Lord William walked gravely to his fallen brother-in-law. Tears had formed in his eyes, and he shook his head as he bent down to examine the prostrate body. The red liquid of the ball had done the job Bebeef had promised, not merely poisoning its victim but splattering him with Death's sanguine signature.

  "Damn you, Clayton," said Lord William. "Damn you. He was nothing to die for."

  Alison, meanwhile, was hunkered over Jake, sobbing quite convincingly.

  "My lord, quickly." Daltoons reached down and lifted the man up. He steered him a few feet away. "Go back to New York while I deal with this. Have your man row you back. I will have your brother-in-law's body returned to you as soon as possible. We will invent an accident, and I will find a doctor who will sign a statement covering the death."

  "But …"

  Daltoons gave the sergeant a glance, and the man advanced, putting his hand on Buckmaster's shoulder.

  "I would not want a stain to come upon your family because of this," said Daltoons. "This bastard of a sergeant is not settling for a light price. Go quickly before he changes his mind. More soldiers are on their way, and they may bring an officer of higher rank than myself. The scandal will be unavoidable then."

  Lord William hesitated. Truly he had lost so much in these past few months that a blot on his family's name for dueling — or rather, for having lost a duel — was nothing.

  "Your wife, sir. Go to your wife."

  The indecision melted. Lord William nodded, and let himself be directed to the rowboat by the sergeant and his servant.

  They were passed on the way by the "surgeon" whom Daltoons had waited on earlier. Huffing and puffing as he appeared from the waterside, in considerable agitation and complaining not only of the weather but the fact that no one in the country knew how to duel properly any more, Claus van Clynne made his very belated appearance at the top of the hillside.

  Whereupon he saw his fallen comrade.

  The cry that followed could not be described in any manner that would portray it with the least degree of accuracy. One might cite the tremendous, pained explosion that falls from a moose's lips when its mate is felled by a hunter in the wild; it might perchance be compared to the fabled sad trumpet of an elephant reaching the holy burial ground of its breed. The famous wail of trumpets that brought down Jericho could be mentioned. Yet none of these sounds would catch the nuances, the depth, the range of the Dutchman's vast and sonorous lament.

  Chapter Forty

  Wherein, a miracle occurs, and a pageant unfolds.

  “ If only you had waited for me,” sobbed van Clynne, pulling at his hair. “Surely I would have saved you. How many times have I plucked you from danger in the past? We were an inseparable pair. What will I do for an assistant now?”

  The Dutchman beat his breast with deep and genuine fervor. "Who will recommend me to General Washington? How will I get my property back?"

  "Crocodile tears," said Alison.

  "Do not think because you have finally found your proper clothes that I will allow you to be impertinent," said van Clynne. "There was a time when even young misses showed the proper respect for their elders. This is what the British have wrought: cynicism among the young. I am almost glad that you are not alive to see this sorry state," the Dutchman added, addressing his fallen comrade. "It would be more than your tender constitution could bear."

  "Tender constitution?"

  "Do not profane the dead with your remarks, child. Remember there is an afterlife. You, sir," van Clynne rose and found Daltoons. "I hold you fully responsible for this poor man's demise. The Revolution has lost its finest soldier. More harm has been done today to our cause than at any three battles on the continent."

  Daltoons ignored him, hurrying his men to deposit the seemingly lifeless bodies in the cart hauled by other assistants and just now appearing from the woods. He took a rifle and ran to the edge of the bluff overlooking the shore, in time to see Buckmaster and his servant push off. Two genuine British boats were just making shore.

  "I would have stopped this duel," wailed van Clynne, turning back to his fallen comrade. "Had I not been delayed by the perfidious tides, slow horses, and the contingencies of, the contingencies — "

  "Of breakfast?" shot Alison, borrowing a canteen from the sergeant who had given Daltoons so much lip.

  "He will have a fine burial, as fine a funeral as ever mounted in this land. Washington himself will be a pallbearer, and I right behind him, assuming my grief subsides."

  While van Clynne wove plans for the funeral, Alison poured water directly into the hole the poisoned bullet had cut. Jake opened his eyes slowly, then pulled up with the soft groan of one interrupted from a pleasant dream.

  "He should be taken to Philadelphia immediately," van Clynne continued, addressing the heavens with his upturned eyes. "Given a procession through the city, and then interred in a place where the Congress can visit his grave every day for inspiration. Near a tavern, of course."

  "Sounds like a lot of trouble," said Jake.

  "Oh no, sir, it is but a trifle. I would think Congress would be happy for the diversion." Van Clynne blinked, suddenly realizing he was talking to a dead man. Daltoons caught him as he fell backwards in a faint.

  "A drug from Professor Bebeef," Jake explained. "The antidote is pure water, as Alison has so obligingly demonstrated. Our friend Bauer will be like this for an hour. Were the others convinced?"

  "Quite," said Daltoons. "But we must leave immediately. The soldiers arriving below are not ours."

  Van Clynne, having recovered from his shock, gave Jake a hearty pat on the back. "Well now, I think the entire episode has progressed very nicely. My acting clinched the effect completely."

  "Your acting?"

  "Indeed, sir. I knew you were but momentarily indisposed, and endeavored to give the best show."

  "Uh-huh."

  The body of the prostrate Tory was hoisted into the cart. The horse began moving before the lieutenant could even produce the whip.

  "Smith's lies a league or so from here," Daltoons told Jake as the company double-timed into the woods. "Will that do for your plans?"

  "Very nicely. Alison and I had quite an adventure reaching you," added Jake, but just as he started to tell Daltoons why he had arrived so late, a man appeared ahead at a bend in the path. Jake bolted forward, flying at him. Before anyone realized what was happening, he had thrown Christof Egans to the ground and pinned him beneath his knees. He pulled the white Oneida's long strand of hair through his fingers, threatening him with his other fist.

  "This bastard is employed by the British as a messenger," Jake told the others as they
ran up. "He tried to take me prisoner and sell me in New York."

  "He's on our side," said van Clynne, huffing forward to intercede. "He has converted. He came with me, and was standing lookout in the woods, as he and I arranged. Come now, sir, you'll ruin what little hair he has left."

  Jake looked at Egans doubtfully as the Dutchman told the full story. Despite his faith in van Clynne, he let his prisoner free with some reluctance.

  Egans had not uttered a word in his defense, and did not do so now. "Two boats landed further north," he said instead. "Splitting off from the two approaching the landing below."

  "Quickly," said Daltoons. "This way through the woods."

  "I know of a better path to Smith's," boasted van Clynne. "We have only to follow a small detour this way. ." He pushed back a tree branch to reveal a narrow and barely noticeable deer path beyond a small if strongly running creek. "… and we will arrive inside an hour. My path has the benefit of being nearly undetectable from the road," he added as the company veered to follow.

  "Remarkable," said Daltoons.

  "Smith is a fine brewer of beer, no doubt," suggested Jake.

  "Top-fermented ale, to be exact," said van Clynne, with his customary air of superiority.

  The placing of the bandage covering Clayton Bauer's chest was done smartly, but in fact, it was not secured well enough to prevent the few drops of water that splashed up from the creek as the men crossed from finding their way into the wound. Thus, unknown to Jake and the others, the Tory leader gained consciousness as he was driven through the woods in the wagon. Disoriented and confused, he did not grasp at first what had happened to him; he knew that he had been shot, but surprisingly felt no pain. For some moments he thought truly that he had died. But the voices around him gave sufficient hint that he had not, and Bauer was wise enough not to cry out. Some sixth sense warned him that the red uniforms that surrounded his wagon were not worn by true friends of the crown, and when he heard Jake's voice giving directions, he realized a trick had been perpetrated.

  For all the patriot rhetoric against him, Clayton Bauer was a brave man. He had sworn that he would continue to serve his king until the moment of his death, and it was an oath he meant to keep.