The Lost Constitution

by William Martin

  Will poured powder down the barrel, rammed home ball and wadding, primed …

  Again, the bunghole features were turning toward him.

  Quickly. Quickly.

  Will stood and pulled back the hammer. This was it. Kill this one and the Frenchman will run.

  Bill was twenty feet away. Close enough.

  Will pulled the trigger and his gun misfired.

  But Curly Bill’s musket did not.

  The ball struck Will in the thigh. It was as if a horse had kicked him, a shod horse kicking hard. Will felt his leg break under him and he collapsed.

  Now the Frenchman was galloping up the road.

  Will rolled onto his side and cried out in agony, the sound as surprising as the pain itself. He tried to suck it back in, to get onto his feet and fight, because Curly Bill was coming to kill him.

  Where was North?

  Then Danton’s big horse thundered past, clearing the Gateway and galloping out into the meadow beyond.

  As soon as Eve saw Danton coming at her, she let go the reins of the two horses and began to run toward the trees.

  But Danton galloped around her, herded her back toward the road, then picked her up and threw her over his saddle.

  Will heard her screaming, “No! No! I’m not going back.”

  There came a loud slap, and Eve’s shouting ceased.

  From where he lay, Will could see a patch of blue sky and the rock face above the road. The rock was sloped like the head of an African elephant. And now North appeared on its brow, fifty feet above.

  Will wanted to cheer. His brother would shoot them both and this would be over.

  North dropped to one knee, aimed toward the Frenchmen, moved the musket about as if seeking a clear shot. Then he seemed to give up on that target and looked down at Curly Bill. That was when Will saw the blood on his brother’s shirt. North tried to aim the musket, but it fell from his hands and came clattering down.

  Then North pitched forward.

  Will cried “No!”

  North seemed to fall straight at him, headfirst, arms outstretched as if he were trying to fly. He turned once in the air and landed on his back with an explosive thud, right in the middle of the road.

  Will cried again, “Nooooo.” And he tried to get up.

  But Curly Bill’s face appeared above him, with that tight round mouth and those round ugly eyes. His bald head was covered in sweat that dripped into Will’s eyes and stung as bitterly as the pain in the leg.

  “Thighbone broke. You’re finished.” He bent down, and slipped a gold watch from Will’s waistcoat. Then he scurried to North’s body and fished his pockets. Then he went over to the unconscious Mary Cousins and rifled her clothes, found her purse in her blouse, and muttered something about nice titties.

  Danton rode up, with the reins of Eve’s horse in his hand and Eve slung over his saddle, unconscious.

  “One dead, two finished,” said Curly Bill.

  “Our story is simple,” answered Danton. “They ambushed us as we came through the Notch, on our way to do business on the Connecticut River. We fought them off.”

  “No one will believe you!” cried Will. “Not when I tell them the truth.”

  “That is true,” said Danton. “Kill them both.”

  Curly Bill took out his knife.

  “No,” said Danton. “With the musket, or it will look as if we ambushed them.”

  During this, Eve came to, looked around, slid off the saddle, began to run again.

  Danton dismounted, loped after her, and grabbed her by the hair. “Do what you’re told, or I will kill you, too.”

  “If you do,” she screamed, “you kill your own child.”

  The Frenchman let her go. He seemed as shocked as if she had shot him. “Child?”

  “It’s what happens when a man forces himself on a woman,” she said.

  Danton grasped her shoulders, looked into her eyes. “I took what was promised by your father. If there is a child, I will protect it.” He picked her up and put her on her horse. She jumped right down on the other side.

  He went around and grabbed her again, slapped her a loud crack across the face, picked her up again, and slammed her down on the horse.

  Then he turned to Curly Bill. “Kill them.”

  Curly Bill stood over Will and put the barrel of the musket against his forehead.

  “Kill them and I’ll never stop running,” said Eve.

  “If we spare them?” asked Danton. “Will you be docile? Will you be my wife?”

  “I will be docile … until we reach Newport.”

  Danton reached over and stroked her chin. “That will be time enough.”

  “WILL. WILL …”

  It was Mary Cousins. She was kneeling over him. There was a bloody bruise on her forehead. Grime and trail dust covered her face.

  She brought a wooden canteen to his lips, held his head, gave him a drink.

  He could not tell how much time had passed. The sky was barely light. It could have been late afternoon. It might have been early morning.

  “I’ve found someone to help us. He’s got a farm in the valley, near the place they call Bretton Woods. His name is Dewlap.”

  There was a cart nearby. Two big horses were snorting. A farmer with a sun-browned face was peering down at him.

  Will smelled horseshit on the farmer’s shoes.

  “Who did you say done this, miss?”

  “I didn’t,” said Mary.

  “And don’t.” Will groaned.

  Horace Dewlap crouched down. His eyes were close together, the spaces in his teeth were wide apart, and he had the nervous look of a crow coming upon an animal carcass in the road. “Son, there’s a dead man at the base of the cliff, and another one down in the riverbed and a blood trail windin’ off to the west. Who done this?”

  “Highwaymen,” said Mary.

  Will’s mind was fogged by pain, but one thing was clear. If the who and the why of this story were told, more men would know about the stolen Constitution, about the foolishness of the young man who had lost it, about the perfidy of the brother who had stolen it. And how could any of it be good for the reputation of Will Pike or the future of the nation?

  So Will said, “Highwaymen. They rode off. Makin’ for the Connecticut.”

  “Well, the law might wonder about highwaymen,” said Farmer Dewlap, “bein’ as there ain’t exactly rich pickin’s hereabout. But the law’s a day’s ride in either direction. And you got a bigger problem, son.”

  “What?”

  The farmer inspected the wound. “Shot missed the artery. That’s good. Hit the bone. That’s bad.”

  “Maybe I can walk,” said Will, and he levered himself up onto his elbows.

  The farmer put a big sun-browned hand on Will’s shoulder. “You ain’t walkin’ anywhere. That leg has to come off.”

  TEN

  PETER FALLON SAID THERE was no better drive in New England than through Crawford Notch, and never better than in October.

  Once you cleared the North Conway strip, you left the crowds and the bargain outlets behind. Then Route 302 wound past the Attitash ski area and began to climb.

  In October, he said, you could call it “the climb sublime.”

  “Forgive me if I don’t quote you,” said Evangeline.

  But it was sublime. In the lower elevations, where the hardwoods grew, the colors were layered, yellow birch on red American beech on orange sugar maple. As your eye traveled up the sheer slopes, conifers added green to the color bursts, first as accent and then, where the hardwoods gave way, as a theme of their own.

  The landscape seemed to warn you: warm days follow cool nights that bring bright foliage, but up high, up where the firs grow dark, winter is awakening, breathing deep, stretching its claws.

  In the last three miles, you climbed six hundred feet, and the walls of the Notch drew ever closer. The road was modern and smooth, with gentle curves and bridges so unobtrusive, you hardly noticed tha
t sometimes the Saco River was on one side, sometimes the other. Then, after you passed the Silver Cascade and the Flume Cascade, the Gateway appeared.

  It was an almost perfect square, hewn and hewn again over the centuries, first by the river, which rose just beyond; then by the Indians who turned a deer path into a trail; then by a pair of enterprising explorers who widened the trail and won a land grant; by the state that turned it into the tenth New Hampshire Turnpike in 1803; by workers blasting rock and laying rails to bring in tourists and take out lumber; and finally by the men who built Route 302, once automobiles had enough horsepower to make the grade.

  “Of course,” said Peter, “all that history is just an eyeblink of human time. Ten thousand years ago, these mountains were covered in ice a mile thick. And come to think of it, that was just an eyeblink in the life of the earth.”

  “No plate tectonics, Peter,” said Evangeline. “Let’s just enjoy the colors.”

  “But it makes you wonder about spending your life chasing down books and documents, simply because they’re a few centuries old, when the mountains are—”

  “You’ve been driving all day. You need a drink.”

  Evangeline was right. If anything could rearrange your perspective amid the grandeur of that landscape, it was a drink at the Mount Washington Hotel.

  One moment, you were gliding past meadows and hills and thick stands of trees. Then it was there, on a rise about five miles from the Gateway, at the place called Bretton Woods, where the Amonoosuc River dropped out of the mountains and turned toward the west.

  It reminded Peter of a ship, something from Theodore Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet, cresting a wave of green golf courses. And it seemed to rise from that faraway time, too. It was grandiose, ambitious, aggressive, optimistic, like Roosevelt himself. No coincidence that it had been built during TR’s presidency.

  Behind it rose the aptly named Presidential Range, including Mount Washington, tallest peak in the Northeast, home to some of the worst weather in the world. But so powerful was the impression that the old hotel made upon the landscape, it seemed that the mountains were oriented toward it and not the other way around.

  “Just so you know,” said Evangeline as they pulled into the parking lot, “I’m not driving any more today. Two hours to Portland. Two and half to here. That’s enough.”

  “Fine by me. But how do we get a room in the Mount Washington in leaf-peeping season, when the New England Rarities Convention is going on, too?”

  “I write travel articles.” She led him under the hotel portico. “Leave it to me.”

  Which he did. Let her go to the desk and talk her way in, while he scouted the exhibitors. They had set up on the great veranda that wrapped the hotel in a railed colonnade: white wicker sofas, red rocking chairs, westerly views of ski slopes, southerly views of Crawford Notch, easterly vistas to the Presidentials.

  There were dealers from Bar Harbor to Greenwich, displaying engravings, rare books, ephemera, artifacts. Some were big names, some small-timers, and Peter knew just about all of them. So it took a while for him to work his way down the porch to where Martin Bloom and his partner, Paul Doherty, were in hot conversation.

  Peter said hello to Ben Perry of Camden, Maine, who sold nautical prints and first editions devoted to Down East sailing. Peter didn’t like buying from Ben, because he smoked, so his books always smelled like ashtrays. But Peter liked talking to him because he had a high-pitched laugh that let loose at the slightest joke.

  Then Peter shook hands with the Butterfield twins of Burlington, Vermont, Joseph and John, known for wearing the same color shirts and contrasting ties. Today: blue Oxford button-downs, a yellow tie on John, red on Joseph. Or was it the other way round?

  “We have a Second Folio,” said John.

  “Good condition?” asked Peter.

  “Some damage,” said Joseph. “That’s how we got it. Too rich for our blood otherwise.”

  “We’re cutting it up,” said John, “rebinding plays in leather.”

  “Two plays to the volume,” said Joseph, “pricing them right.”

  “Three thousand for Comedies and Romances, four for Histories, more for Tragedies,” said John. “And we remember how much you like Shakespeare.”

  “I thought this was a convention for New England rarities,” answered Peter.

  “Well, that’s what we are,” said John.

  “New England rarities,” said Joseph.

  From the next booth, Ben Perry gave out with a laugh.

  … and so it went until Peter reached the Old Curiosity display.

  Martin Bloom had managed to disappear, leaving Peter to do his own talking with Paul Doherty. Thanks a lot.

  Unlike Bloom, who had warmth beneath his crust, Paul Doherty was crust all the way through. He shot Peter an annoyed look but kept his attention on a couple from Chicago, foliage tourists, commonly called leaf-peepers, who were asking for a catalogue.

  “Are you collectors?” Doherty was asking them.

  “Not yet,” said the wife cheerily, “but we’re interested.”

  “Do you know what you’re looking for?” Doherty snapped.

  “Well,” said the husband, more wary than cheerful, “we’re not sure.”

  “Catalogues are expensive,” said Doherty. “I try not to waste them.”

  “Waste them?” said the husband. “Why do you print them then?”

  Doherty gestured to the table. “Take a business card. It has the Web site. Read that.”

  And the couple from Chicago huffed off.

  “Way to spread that New England hospitality,” said Peter.

  “What are you after?” Doherty’s face was square, solid, red, and the nose was broken. He didn’t look like a rare book man, more like one of those hard-drinking bricklayers who used to work for Fallon & Son Construction.

  “I’m like that couple,” said Peter. “I’m not sure. What do you have?”

  “You’re on a fishing expedition?” Doherty lowered his voice. “You see Martin’s name in the acknowledgments of a book and you think … what do you think?”

  “That I ought to talk to Martin. So I do. And he says we have to talk to you.”

  “About what?”

  “You tell me,” said Peter. “Martin told me nothing.”

  “Neither will I. So go back to Boston, or set up your own booth.”

  Martin Bloom was coming back. “I ordered three Tuckermans. Let’s call it a day and go sit on one of the wicker sofas and—”

  “Too late,” said Peter. “Paul wants to keep whatever he knows to himself.”

  Doherty’s face got a bit redder.

  It was plain that these two were on to something that had to do with that professor. How to tease it out?

  A waiter brought three tall glasses of amber beer. Bloom signed for them. Peter offered a toast to see how Doherty would react. “Here’s to Will Pike. A great American.”

  “Here’s to minding our own business,” said Doherty.

  Martin Bloom picked up his glass, shrugged, and toasted both of them.

  “HOW DO YOU stand him?” asked Peter in the lounge a while later.

  Bloom said, “Paul and I, we’ve been partners for over thirty years.”

  Evangeline came toward them, waving a room key.

  “Ah,” said Peter, “there’s a little good news, anyway.”

  She stood over them. “What are you doing inside when you could be sitting on the veranda, watching the light change on the mountains?”

  “In October,” said Martin, “the temperature drops as the light changes.”

  The lounge was on the east side, the Presidential side. It was crowded. The veranda was crowded. The whole hotel was crowded.

  “Better to look out the window than look at that—” Evangeline pointed at the TV.

  American News Network with the sound turned down and stock prices sliding by, so that guests could see how Citigroup and GE were doing and spend more in the bar because t
hey had more to spend or drink more to drown their sorrows. The face on the screen: Kelly Cutter. Sharp features, blond hair, strong jaw, toothy smile, a right-wing Carly Simon.

  “I don’t know what she’s doing on this channel,” said Evangeline. “Let’s go.”

  But as Peter stood, he saw another face appear on TV: Harriet Holden. She looked better with makeup. He asked the bartender to turn up volume.

  “Ah, who wants to listen to her?” said a big guy at another table. He was wearing a black ball cap with the word PING across the front in silver. “All she wants to do is take away our guns.”

  “Yeah,” said one of his friends. “Next thing, she’ll want our golf clubs.”

  A foursome, thought Peter, having a few pops after a round on the Donald Ross course with the great views. Old buddies following the siren of the little dimpled ball. It said so on their clothes. Pebble Beach shirts, Pinehurst sweaters, Augusta National Windbreakers, and of course, hats that advertised the makers of balls and clubs and shoes. Titleist. Ping. Foot Joy. Just like their heroes on the Golf Channel.

  One of them said, “Somebody should tell that Harriet Holden that golf clubs don’t kill people, golf courses do.”

  Peter couldn’t place their accents, but he knew the explosive guffaws of guys ready to laugh at just about anything, including a liberal female politician or the sensitive male who wanted to listen to her. A generally harmless breed. And Peter didn’t want to get in their way. Best to let Harriet Holden ramble on in silence.

  Then Mr. Ping said to the bartender, “Keep the sound down. Anybody wants to listen to her, they can watch in their room.”

  This caused Peter to change his mind. He said to Mr. Ping, “By the time I get to my room, she’ll be finished.”

  “Yeah, well”—Mr. Ping waved his glass—”you can thank me later.” He was a big guy, an old athlete, probably still formidable, even if he drank a little more beer for every year that he slipped beyond fifty.

  In his politest voice, Peter asked the bartender to turn up the volume.

  “Let’s go, Peter.” Evangeline had seen it happen before, when Peter let his stubbornness get in the way of his good sense.