“You think I do?” Pardon’s roar overpowered the chattering horsemen. Several turned to stare.
“That’s between you and Hendrick.”
“I agree with Justin,” said Lancey. “The shad we set out to sell are still in the dory. Pardon shares because he was in on the catch. We weren’t.”
“Lancey!” There was hurt and bewilderment in Hendrick’s tone. “What kind of talk is that? There is enough, and more, for all. Wouldn’t Hester and I have expected our part of the money you made today? Wasn’t it understood that we were all selling the same catch?”
“Aye,” said Pardon, “that’s true enough. I thought you had the worse chance, Hendrick.”
“I would have if it wasn’t for Dirck and—”
“That’s another reason,” said Justin. “I take no favors from Master van Zandt.”
Lancey was tempted to say the same, but, turning, saw Dirck was within earshot. He smiled at her, stepped closer. He spoke with amused tolerance.
“Nor need you, Master Pattison. Very little of that pile is mine, nor was any of it gathered as a favor to you. There was a chance to provide some sport for my friends, and their horses. They had all heard of the record catch, and naturally it added spice to the occasion.” He gazed at Lancey, tried to convince with sincerity. “I cannot regret that Hendrick profited by our efforts.”
Justin said, “I prefer not to.”
Neither man spoke loudly, but the tension between them spread across the yard. Lancey saw that most of the horsemen were listening. Hester, frowning and troubled, had stepped back from the fire to peer toward the argument. Even Digmus Jaycock had turned from the beer keg to hear. In the corner near the horses Schuyler Davis and Tappen Platt were murmuring insults at each other as they tried to get the indignant pullets back in the sack.
“That is your privilege,” Dirck said. He was aware of the other’s height, that Lancey had drawn close to Justin. The look on the girl’s face angered Dirck. “The fox who called the grapes sour at least didn’t try to spoil everyone else’s enjoyment of them.”
“That’s not fair,” cried Lancey. “He’s not—we’re not trying to spoil anything for anybody!” She was furious at Dirck. He dared to rebuke Justin after sneaking behind their backs, and peddling shad on horseback.
“Then,” said Dirck, with cool insolence, “my compliments on your excellent success without trying.”
Lancey flushed, then paled as she admitted the truth in the remark. The misery in her father’s face, the worry in Hester’s, the embarrassed awkwardness of fishermen and riders had not been present before Justin spoke. Pardon Cash had a hangdog look; nobody cried out that the truth was unjust! Why had the crowd forced Justin to speak by jeering at their failure?
At that moment a chicken broke loose from Tappen Platt. It fled, in darts and swoops, across the yard, fluttering, squawking, scampering. Men dodged from its path, ducked away from its awkward attempts to fly. The tension broke in laughter as Tappen, a comical caricature of the bird, raced whooping in pursuit.
Twice, the man grabbed and missed. At last, heedless of everything but the elusive pullet, Tappen flung himself in a headlong dive. He caught one yellow-clawed leg, but his momentum carried him rolling, to crash against Justin Pattison’s knees.
Justin, standing very straight, barely wavered at the impact. He kept his gaze on Dirck van Zandt, and he was not smiling.
“Sorry,” panted Tappen, grinning up from the dust. Without glancing at him, Justin stooped, and clutched. He lifted Tappen, and flung him aside, handling the man like a sack of laundry.
Tappen hit the ground hard, and lay stunned. The pullet broke loose, and darted away. Its squawks sounded doubly raucous in the sudden hush.
For a heartbeat no one moved. Then Schuyler Davis stepped forward, chin raised, eyes grave. He looked from Justin to his fallen friend, and back. Schuyler said, almost mildly, “You might pick on someone your size.”
As if moved by an unseen breeze the horsemen shifted positions as they ranked themselves behind Schuyler Davis. With a grunt Pardon Cash flanked his partner.
Lancey opened her mouth, but Dirck van Zandt spoke first. “No,” he said. “No, Schuyler, there’ll be no brawling. Let’s not wreck what we’ve done.”
“My dear Dirck,” Schuyler said, “I do not brawl. But if this fellow has any gentlemanly pretensions, I will gladly have my seconds call on—”
Tappen Platt sat up and swore. He rose shakily, pushing away Dirck’s helping hand. “Schuyler,” he said, “if there’s any quarrel it’s mine. I’m the one went boots over buttocks.” He turned to face Justin. “Sir, I bumped you most rudely. My apologies for that. I offer them with the expectation of a proper reply.”
It sounded, Lancey thought, all stiffly formal but it was dangerous. Tappen waited, dignified in spite of dusty clothes. Justin, unafraid, curled his lips in the familiar, reckless grin that chilled her. She saw Digmus Jaycock grab Justin’s elbow, lean close. The innkeeper’s face worked, but his whisper was so quick that Lancey wasn’t sure she heard.
“You blasted fool! You’ll queer Venick’s plan!”
Justin’s grin stiffened, broadened; his eyelids drooped. Lancey saw the dark eyes glint as he glanced about for listeners. She was carefully gazing at the ground when he spoke.
“My apologies are certainly in order. I acted without thinking. A wrestler’s trick triggered by our sudden collision. Your servant, sir. I am truly sorry.”
“So,” said Hendrick with gusty relief. “Well done by both parties. Now, it is forgotten. Hester, our friends are not eating!”
“Well,” cried Hester, “it’s ready. I ain’t spoon-feeding grown men!”
Lancey noticed that the innkeeper brought Tappen Platt a tankard of beer. Jaycock’s square spectacles never once turned in Justin’s direction.
CHAPTER 19
IN THE FIRST WEEKS OF JUNE THE SHAD RUN SLACKENED; THE dwindling number of fish gave warning that the yearly migration was over. At the same time delegates to New York’s Constitutional Convention began to arrive in Poughkeepsie.
Lancey Quist found this combination of facts amusing. It was, she thought, almost as if the political meeting was planned as a substitute entertainment. There was no doubt now of the convention’s importance. South Carolina, a faraway state that in Lancey’s mind consisted of Charleston and palmetto trees, had ratified the new document on the twenty-third of May. With the realization that eight states had signed, that only one more was needed for adoption, the citizens of the state of New York in general, and the township of Poughkeepsie in particular, decided they had been chosen by destiny.
This decision ignored two other conventions; New Hampshire to the north, powerful Virginia in the south. In the opinion of the town, both would be wise if they waited to profit by New York’s example.
Even Justin Pattison, the most vocal and violent of the riverfront men, agreed. “New York’s the most important,” he told Lancey, “and what’s decided here should decide the others!”
“You sound,” said Lancey, amused, “as if you’d been born on the river.”
“God forbid. I might have been taught to touch my forelock to an old Dutch name on a thousand acre grant.”
The girl frowned, finding the complaint wearisome after so much repetition. This might have been true once, she thought, but it wasn’t any longer. There was a squirt of acid in her reply.
“Do you think Pa does? Or Pardon?”
“No,” he said, blinking, “the rivermen are the best of the lot. They’re the ones—”
“Yes?” she asked, when he didn’t finish.
They were sitting in their favorite clearing, gazing down at the river. Justin plucked a blade of grass, chewed it. He glanced sideways at the girl, shrugged. “They’re the only ones,” he said, “with any gumption.”
That was not, Lancey thought, what he started to say. Angrily, she recognized another evasion. He must think she was blind or stupid! Ever since Digmus Jaycoc
k’s whispered warning she’d been aware of Justin’s changed manner of living. He fished less and less, frequented the ordinary more. Jan was right; Justin for some reason was in league with Christian Venick.
Anger hardened into resolution. She had picked this man over all others because they thought alike. She was tired of mystery. How could she offer loyalty and faithfulness if Justin refused to give her the chance?
“Justin,” she said, facing him, “what are you and Venick up to?”
“Venick?”
“Venick.”
“Now, what makes you think——”
“Oh, please,” Lancey said, “please, Justin. If you answer one more question with a question, I’ll scream.” She saw his face go wooden, but there was no stopping now. “You and Digmus Jaycock and Venick are mixed up in something. It’s obvious. Why can’t you trust me?”
“If it’s that obvious, you’ve been spying.”
“It didn’t take any spying. You see less of Pardon, less of me, than you do of them!”
“I can’t spend all my time with you!”
“Nobody—” She heard her voice rise, caught her breath to check the words of rage that might end everything. For an instant, while she linked her fingers tightly, she wondered at her discretion. When before had she tried to avoid an open quarrel? But she could not gain his confidence by recrimination. She said, “Nobody is asking that, Justin, but I would like all your trust.”
“Lancey,” he said, troubled, “it’s better you don’t know——”
“Because what you plan is—dishonest?”
“No! What do you think I am?”
“I am trying,” she said, “to get that straight.”
Justin looked at her. He rose, walked a few restless paces, back and forth, as if seeking to arrange his thoughts through motion. Lancey watched him, meeting his eyes calmly. She could hear the murmur of the river below, and the birds chirping in the trees that hedged the clearing.
“All right,” Justin said, squatting beside her, “I cannot tell you Venick’s plan because it is not my secret, and I pledged myself. He knew my name from old friends who are now in the Vermont Republic, but I joined in willingly. Jaycock seems to know Venick from other days, and is well paid for his trouble.”
Lancey nodded, afraid to speak or speculate lest she lose a single syllable.
“You must take my word, Lancey, that there is nothing dishonorable in the plan.”
“Of course,” she said.
“Thank you. Now, I can prove that my trust is as great as yours, because I am placing my freedom, and perhaps even my life, in your hands.”
She said, “You are a fugitive.”
“Yes. You have heard of Shays’ Rebellion? Over in Massachusetts.”
“It was in the town paper.”
“There was a great deal that wasn’t printed anywhere, Lancey, and a lot of it was truth. We weren’t just a band of troublemakers, hotheads, outlaws like some said, or soldiers who wanted to put the army in power. Dan Shays wasn’t like that, nor Luke Day, nor Adam Wheeler, nor Eli Parsons. They were the leaders, and the rest of us felt pretty much as they did. If we were wrong it was wrong law that made us so, and we rose in arms because there was no other way.
“Shays was captain because he’d been one—and a good one—during the war. I never happened to serve with him, then, but I’m proud I followed him when I did. He was big framed, red faced and honest, with no lack of courage.
“We were west-country men, remember, from the Berkshires, and the Hampshires, and the valley of the Connecticut. We’d gone to war, willingly, when Boston found the king’s rule too heavy to bear, but the shoe was on another foot once Boston ruled the state. The lawyers, and the merchants, the ship owners, the office holders gave lip service to liberty, but made sure they lined their pockets.
“Men who had fought, and maybe shed blood, for independence came back to Massachusetts and misery. They’d been paid in worthless paper. Their farms had been neglected; their families were in want. And they found they were being taxed out of the little they had left.
“I was no farmer, had neither family nor property, but right is right, Lancey. I sided with my comrades.
“There was a spate of talk about how we expected to be treated like heroes. Rubbish! Those men wanted to keep their land, that’s all, to make a living and feed their children. But their taxes wouldn’t let them!
“And they acted mighty patient for hotheads. Do you recall when the trouble broke out?”
“I think so,” Lancey said. “It was the winter before last, wasn’t it?” She was listening with parted lips, thrilled to discover that Justin could still excite her with a tale.
“Earlier,” said Justin. “Fall of ‘86, and winter of ‘87. The war had been over for about three years, but things were getting worse, not better. The courts haled men up for land taxes, took away the land, threw debtors into gaol. Courts with highly paid judges, where legal action cost a small fortune.
“The whole of Massachusetts wasn’t blind. There were resolutions passed in Boston, in the State Senate, in the Court of Common Pleas. But nothing was done! Not until we did it.
“We started closing courts that autumn. We closed them before they could take any more land away, and we did it with muskets to prevent argument. Maybe a judge or two was hooted at, or a tax collector pummeled, but mostly nobody was hurt. When the Supreme Court tried to sit at Springfield we raised a rumpus until it adjourned.
“That’s when old Bowdoin decided to send troops against us. The governor picked Ben Lincoln to lead them, for God’s sake! Lincoln, who’d lost his sword at Charleston, and only got Cornwallis’s at the surrender because General Washington was generous.
“Still, he had over four thousand men, and I don’t think we had that many musket balls. We needed powder and shot and we decided to go for the arsenal in Springfield.”
“Where you’d lived,” said Lancey, recalling earlier conversations.
“That’s right. Before the war, and after. If there was any town I called home that was the one.
“We figured General Sheppard, who commanded the arsenal, would fight. Shays led part of us into the town on one side to draw his fire. Luke Day was to come in from the other side and attack Sheppard in the rear. Luke had a good half of our force hid out in an apple orchard.
“Sheppard hit us about as we expected, only sooner and harder. He ripped us with a volley, and drove us, but we didn’t break. We pulled back, waiting for Luke Day, and the rest of the boys. They didn’t come, and they didn’t come.
“Dan Shays grabbed my shoulder. What with cold and fury his face was purple. ‘Justin,’ he says, ‘you know this place. Find Luke and tell him to high-tail in here!’
“I took out for that apple orchard, skirting the fight, cutting through the town. Springfield seemed quiet and deserted as I drew away from the rattle of the muskets. There was snow on the eaves, and the streets were silent and empty. I went cross lots, and by back alleys, trying to avoid drifts and run on the hard packed snow.
“Then, as I came out the head of a lane, I ran into a squad of armed citizens hurrying to join Sheppard. There were plenty in Springfield against us, and one of these happened to be the son of my old master.
“ ‘Say,’ he yells, ‘that’s Justin Pattison. He’s one of them.’
“I never had liked that lad, but I never liked him less.
“ ‘Surrender!’ shouts another.
“Well, of course, I pulled foot, with the six of them after me, guns popping. Nothing hit me, but we were so close those balls went by like flung gravel. I half turned, running, and fired my musket from the hip. Young Eph fell and the rest scattered.
“There was no one in the orchard when I got there. Luke Day was gone, and everyone else. They’d heard, they said, we’d been chased out of Springfield, and that Ben Lincoln was coming. By the time I caught Luke Day’s bunch, heel-and-toeing it down the pike, it was true enough. All of it, though we di
dn’t know it then.
“We camped, after Dan Shays rejoined us, in a snow-covered field near Petersham. It was a glum camp of bitter cold and discouraged men. Ben Lincoln’s four thousand found us there, came at us without warning, and smashed us. Some escaped, Dan Shays, Luke, Adam and myself among them. The rest were hunted down like rabbits trapped in the high snow.”
Justin glanced around the sun-bright glen, and shivered. Lancey reached, clasped his hand.
“That’s about it,” Justin said, “except that I was a long time getting over the wound I took at Petersham, and it was a longer before it was safe to travel. You see, the friends that hid me got word that young Eph died, amputated, and they’d hang me higher than Haman back in Springfield.”
“Justin!”
“So help me God, Lancey, I wasn’t even aiming. I just wanted to frighten them.”
“But they would hang you,” Lancey said, “higher than Huddleston.” She recalled Poughkeepsie’s most famous hanging, when, eight years before, the whole town had watched the execution of a British spy. Gallows and death throes were vivid in her memory.
And they would do that, Lancey thought, to Justin. Her hand gripped his tighter, holding him safe from such an end.
“That’s why,” Justin said, “I’ve no use for your Governor Clinton. He didn’t have to call out his militia.”
“Clinton?” Lancey said, confused. Then, she realized that Justin was still talking about Shays’ Rebellion.
“Supposed to be for the poor man!” Justin’s voice was tight with bitterness. “Well, we were poor enough, and whipped, but he marched an army to the border in case any of us might try to sneak into his precious state! Yes, and he put prices on our heads.”
“I remember,” said Lancey. “That was printed in the Country Journal. One hundred fifty pounds for Daniel Shays. A hundred for Luke Day, and some others.”
“Blood money. The damned Pharisee!”
“Well, maybe he didn’t know all the ins and outs of—”
“What was there to know? Dan Shays fought all over this state! Ticonderoga, Saratoga, Stony Point! But George Clinton wanted to clap him in irons for something he did in Massachusetts.”
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