The Tory Widow

by Christine Blevins

  Cunningham swayed on his feet, checked his watch once again. “No. Fuck ’em. I’m ready to see this man hang now.”

  Richmond drove a big two-mule dray into the yard. Jack shuffled over as the hangman backed the wagon in to sit with the tail end centered beneath the noose. Hopping down from the seat, the big mulatto grabbed Jack up like a sack of potatoes to sit on the wagon bed. Jack looked up at the noose, and his heart began beating wild in his chest as if it might burst.

  Think of something else . . . something good . . . something kind . . . something beautiful . . .

  Frantic to quell his panic, Jack closed his eyes, breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, and tried to remember—the weight of Annie’s leg tossed over his in the morning . . . how soft her cheek felt under his thumb . . . the blue of her eye when she said, “I love you . . .”

  “I’ve got me boots, me nobby, nobby boots

  I’ve got boots a-seen a lot of rough weather

  For the bottoms’ near wore out and the heels flying about

  And me toes are looking out for better weather . . .”

  Jack ’s eyes snapped open at the familiar scratchy voice singing the familiar ditty. Tully swaggered into the torchlight, bottle of rum in hand.

  “Here’s to the grog, boys, the jolly, jolly grog

  Here’s to the rum and tobacco

  I’ve a-spent all my tin with the lassies drinking gin

  And to cross the briny ocean I must wander . . .”

  “Heigh-ho, lads!” Tully grinned and waved his bottle. Jack was grateful for the gag, for he would have surely given Tully’s ruse away for the enormous smile on his face.

  O’Keefe rushed up, grabbed Tully by the scruff of the neck and attempted to drag him away. “Drunken sot . . .”

  Tully shook off his assailant, and in a thick brogue—no doubt aping his long-dead Irish mother—the longshoreman protested this rude treatment.

  “Away and take yer face for a shite, you ugly little fart-sucker. I am able to perambulate on me own accord.”

  “Leave the man be, O’Keefe,” the provost ordered.

  “The bastard’s drunk and past curfew . . .” the sergeant blustered.

  “Curfew be damned,” Tully shouted. “I’ve come to see a rebel be scragged.”

  “A man after me own heart.” Cunningham swept his hand up. “Come on over, Dublin, and join the party.”

  Tully bowed. “Thank you kindly, sir.”

  Upon the provost’s order to “Carry on,” the hangman jumped onto the wagon and pulled Jack up to a stand. Like a player on a stage, Jack bounced on the balls of his feet, scanning his audience and assessing the lay of the land.

  O’Keefe and the Hessian leaned on muskets off to his left. Directly ahead, perhaps twelve paces back from the wagon’s edge, the provost stood with Loring and the quartermaster. Tully had positioned himself betwixt the two groups. Jack met his friend’s eye, and they exchanged a barely discernible nod. But for the green glass bottle in his hand, Tully was apparently unarmed, but Jack knew better.

  O’Keefe—musket. Hessian—musket. Quartermaster—pistol and sword. Cunningham—cane, perhaps a hidden sword. Loring—also apparently unarmed.

  Richmond dropped the noose over his head. The heft of the rope around his neck caused Jack to shift his weight from one foot to the other, eyes darting about. What is Tully waiting for?

  “You see that?” Cunningham pointed with his cane. “This bastard’s the type who’ll both piss and shit himself.”

  A peal of inane giggles rang out, and Jack heard Sally Tucker shout, “Hoy, lads! Wait! Wait for us!”

  A trio of garish prostitutes and their bullyback came into the yard off Broad Way. The women linked arms. Skipping over to stand before Cunningham, they dipped in a florid, unison curtsy. Their disguises were so complete and so alike, Jack was only able to tell who they were by their voices.

  “A special gift . . .” Patsy began.

  “For the provost marshall . . .” Sally continued.

  “Compliments of the captain,” Anne completed.

  On this cue the women threw their skirts up, offering a very brief flash of what lay under all that red silk.

  Floyd grinned from ear to ear. Cunningham leaned in on his cane a bit wobbly, and actually smiled. “A lovely threesome! What captain sends such a generous gift?” he asked.

  Anne put a finger to her temple, and squeezed her eyes tight in concentration. Snapping her eyes wide-open, she said with an adorable nod, “The captain at the Red Lion, sir.”

  Floyd pulled Sally into his arms. “Now this is what I call a hanging party.”

  “Aye.” Sally brazenly drew a flask from the quartermaster’s sash, and offered a toast. “Here’s hopin’ that rebel’s not the only man who’ll be well hung tonight.”

  Anne sidled up to Loring, and he squeaked, “Hear, hear!”

  Patsy looped her arm through Cunningham’s and gazed up at him with adoring eyes.

  “You can go home to your madam.” Cunningham waved Titus away. “I’ll see these ladies are escorted back safe.”

  Titus bowed. “Yessuh!”

  Cunningham shouted, “Get on with it, Richmond.”

  Jack kept his eye on Titus as he turned to leave, and saw him slip the cudgel from his sash as he skirted around behind O’Keefe.

  Tully shouted, “Now!”

  In the same instant, Titus dropped first the sergeant and then the Hessian with two fierce thwacks to the backs of their heads. The girls leapt back, pistols cocked and leveled. Tully drew a pistol and advanced on Richmond, shouting, “Up with your arms, hangman! Up! ”

  “You, too!” Patsy shouted. “Up with your arms!”

  Cunningham groaned. Both he and Loring raised their arms.

  “Patsy! By Christ!” Floyd struggled to pull his pistol from his sash.

  “Up with yer arms,” Sally warned.

  Floyd freed his pistol, and aimed it at Tully, climbing onto the wagon.

  Titus snatched up a musket and shouted, “Shoot him, Sal!”

  Sally and Floyd pulled their triggers.

  Sally’s shot aimed steady and square to his chest sent the quartermaster flying back. His shot knocked Tully to the ground.

  Richmond pursued his vocation like an automaton—tightening the noose, positioning the knot just beneath Jack’s left ear. Taking up a leather quirt, he leapt down to stand beside the mules with arms folded, waiting for the signal from his master.

  Cunningham shouted, “Scrag the bastard, Richmond!”

  The hangman whipped the mules. The mules did not budge.

  Titus fired a musket, hitting the hangman in the shoulder, staggering Richmond only for a moment. Titus leapt up onto the dray. Whipping his knife from his boot, he sliced through the binding at Jack ’s wrists.

  Richmond continued to whip the stubborn mules. Tully pulled himself up and, leveling his pistol at the large target, sent the hangman flying with a ball to his chest.

  Hands free, Jack struggled to loosen the knot behind his ear as Titus sawed away at the thick rope. “Mrs. Anne!” Titus shouted.

  Anne turned to see the dray lurch forward and the rope grow taut, as Jack struggled to keep his footing on the moving wagon bed.

  Tully staggered forward to try to gain control of the slow-moving mules. Titus leapt up and grabbed hold of the rope above the noose as Jack grabbed hold of the rope around his neck with both fists. The mules continued forward and the two went swinging.

  “Hold on, Jack—hold on!” Titus gasped, hanging by one arm. Swinging to and fro, he sliced through the taut hempen cording. Jack struggled to breathe through the gag; he hung on to the loop around his neck, jerking his hobbled legs up to keep from strangling as the noose tightened, biting into his fingers.

  Anne pressed her pistol on Sally and ran to catch Jack by the legs and lift him as best she could to relieve the pressure on his airway.

  “There!” Titus cut through the rope, and they all tumbled int
o the dirt.

  Tully managed to grab a harness and stop the animals backing them up a few paces. Titus and Anne lifted Jack onto the wagon bed, and jumped on. Tully pulled up onto the seat. Taking hold of the reins, he slapped the mules into motion.

  Jack tore at the gag and pulled the noose loose, gulping and coughing for a breath.

  “C’mon, c’mon!” Titus shouted to the girls, as Tully urged the trotting mules across Broad Way.

  Tossing wigs to the ground, Sally and Patsy lifted their skirts and sprinted toward the wagon, leaving Cunningham and Loring fumbling for the pistols under their jackets. Sally reached the wagon first, tossing her pistol to Titus, who fired off a cover round as Anne pulled Sally aboard. The mules picked up speed.

  “Take my hand!” Titus shouted to Patsy, who was struggling to catch up. She tossed her pistol away, and reached out. Titus grabbed her by the forearm. The provost gave chase, getting off a shot just as Patsy was pulled aboard.

  Careening around the corner, the wagon clattered over the cobbles of Church Street, and Tully whipped the reins and drove like mad, straight into the heart of Canvas Town.

  Patsy pulled up to a sit with her back against the driver’s seat. “We did it!”

  Anne and Sally used their knives to cut through the bonds at Jack ’s ankles. Jack tugged the noose over his head and tossed it overboard. Coughing and hacking, he clutched at his throat, and in a voice raspier than Tully’s, he finally croaked out, “No man—could want—for finer friends . . .”

  Tully tugged on the reins, pulled the wagon into a narrow little alley and came to a noisy stop. Turning in his seat with a wince, he waved them all out of the wagon. “We’re on foot from here on. Can you walk, Jack?”

  Jack nodded. “Can you?”

  “Took a ball in the arse,” Tully said. “I ain’t gonna pay it much mind just yet.”

  Titus jumped down. “Better hurry. The provost will have Redcoats crawling all over the city in no time.”

  Patsy pushed off on her palms, and shifted forward to sit at the edge of the wagon bed.

  “We’ve a ways to go yet . . .” Titus looked up and down the narrow corridor between two rows of burned-out and crumbling tenements. Their arrival had drawn the curiosity of more than a few furtive faces peeking out from behind draped canvas, and around dark doorways.

  “Where’re we going?” Jack asked.

  Tully hopped down and picked up a piece of timber suitable for use as a club. “Fishmarket—the Quaker waits there with the boat.”

  “Fishmarket.” Jack ran his hands over his hair. “Bound to smell better than Canvas Town.”

  “I never thought to hear myself say it, but I willna breathe easy till we’re on the water.” Sally scooted off the side of the dray.

  Anne gathered her skirts and hopped down. “I never thought I’d ever look forward to going to Peekskill.”

  Jack debarked and, wavering, clutched at the wagon’s side, stamping both feet to the ground to regain his bearings. “I guess a fellow needs to find his land legs after a dance at the gallows . . .”

  Anne steadied him with an arm around his waist. “Maybe you need to rest a bit?”

  He squeezed her hand. “I’ll rest on the boat.”

  “Alright, mates—quick and quiet are the words. Let’s go.”

  “You heard what Tully said—quick and quiet.” Titus gave Patsy a nudge, and she slumped over on the wagon bed like a sack of beans. “Pats!” Rolling the girl onto her back, his hand came up dark and sticky with blood. “She’s shot . . .”

  Jack pushed Titus aside and tore at Patsy’s dress, which was drenched in blood. “I can’t find the wound . . .” He grasped her stays and ripped them apart.

  Patsy moaned. “My legs, Jack . . . they’re gone . . .”

  “Nooo . . . nooo . . . your legs are fine,” Jack whispered, grasping her by the hand. “Titus is just goin’ t’ roll you over a bit, so we can find the wound and stanch the bleeding, alright?”

  “Uh-huh . . .”

  Titus pulled her gently onto her side. In the moonlight, they both could see a ragged hole the size of a fist, torn in the pale flesh between her shoulder blades, pumping a river of dark blood.

  Jack pressed a hand to the wound to no avail. Patsy’s blood continued to pulse through his fingers with every beat of her heart. Titus looked at Jack, shook his head, and they rolled her back. Jack pulled the edges of her dress together, and whispered over his shoulder to the others.

  “We—” Jack swallowed, choking back his tears. “We need to wait here just a bit—alright?”

  Anne and Sally pushed past Titus to the side of the dray.

  “I’ve cocked it all up . . .” Patsy breathed.

  Anne pressed her fingers to Patsy’s cheek. “Everything will be fine, Patsy, you’ll see . . .”

  “Ye just need to rest a bit, lass.”

  Patsy smiled. “We saved him, Annie . . .”

  Leaning in, Anne stroked Patsy’s hair. “We did, brave girl . . . We did.”

  Patsy sighed. “I’m dead, aren’t I?”

  “Nooo . . .” Jack took Patsy’s hand to his lips.

  “It figures . . .” Patsy looked up into his eyes, her words puffing out in gasps. “My heart . . . a big target . . .” Whispering a soft, “Oh!” her eyes fluttered closed.

  Jack heaved a shuddered sigh, and folded Patsy’s hands together. “She’s gone from us.”

  Anne buried her face in Jack ’s shoulder.

  Tully crossed himself. “God curse the man who fired that shot.”

  “My, my God . . .” Titus moaned, and bolstered Sally with an arm around her shoulders. They all stood stunned and the tower bell rang out once, as though to toll Patsy’s soul onward.

  “We’d better get moving, mate.” Tully laid a hand on Jack ’s shoulder. “This ain’t a very wholesome place—I fear there are desperate eyes and ears about us.”

  “I know . . .” Jack swiped away his tears. “But we can’t leave Patsy—not here.”

  “I have her, Jack.” Titus lifted Patsy in his arms. “We won’t be leavin’ Patsy to the pigs what live in this rubbish heap.”

  Tully groaned, shaking his head. “But we’ve got to move quick, lads . . .”

  “We’re near the churchyard,” Anne said, “consecrated ground. We can lay Patsy with Jemmy, and she’ll be safe until the church-man can see to her in the morning.”

  “Good,” Jack agreed. “To Trinity.”

  Tully led the way, followed by Titus, Anne and Sally. Jack brought up the rear, armed with a stout club he’d picked up along the way.

  Canvas Town came alive as they moved in its uneasy darkness. Odd whistles, footfalls and whispers followed them as they crunched through the ruins along mazelike paths created by the denizens to purposefully confuse and entrap.

  “There’s a light ahead,” Tully whispered over his shoulder. “The churchyard, I think.”

  Titus was stumbling and breathing hard, his burden grown heavy and cumbersome. Anne whispered, “Almost there, good friend.”

  They crossed Thames Street, and climbed over the short picket fence into the graveyard. Anne led them to a spot beneath a locust tree, whose rustling leaves cast feathery shadows in the moonlight. She pointed to the empty space to the left of Jemmy’s little grave. “That’s my place—lay Patsy there.”

  Titus laid Patsy out on the grass. Sally used the hem of her petticoat to rub the paint and blood from her friend’s pretty face. Anne straightened Patsy’s clothing, and combed fingers through her soft dark curls. Jack folded her small hands across her breast, and kissed her cold cheek.

  “Be at peace, dear Patsy.”

  Shouts, and the unmistakable clank and creak of soldiers at the quickstep caught their ears, and Tully urged, “With speed, mates . . . across Broad Way—now.”

  Sally and Titus followed Tully to the churchyard fence that bordered Broad Way.

  “Wait . . .” Anne fell to her knees and began picking and plucking at the
dead leaves and twigs entangled in the grass on Jemmy’s grave.

  “Annie . . .” Jack took her by the shoulders. “We have to go . . .”

  Anne stopped her frantic tending, and leaned against the stone marker, tipping her head to rest on the curve of the granite for a moment. She closed her eyes, and heaved a sigh. Rising to her feet, she took Jack by the hand and they ran to catch up with the others. Anne glanced back as they passed through the churchyard gate. “You think we’ll ever come back?”

  “Oh, we’ll be back.” Jack gave her hand a squeeze. “I promise.”

  KEEPING to shadows and dark doorways, Jack traversed the familiar backstreets and alleyways, leading the group to the Fishmarket, evading the Watch, and the companies of Redcoats the provost had patrolling the streets. They scurried down to the very end of the dock and found the Quaker minding the pettiauger with a pistol in his hand, and Bandit asleep in a tight curl on his lap.

  “Wonderful to see you all safe, Jack.” The Quaker welcomed each of them, handing off his weapon to Titus. Bandit leapt into Sally’s arms, panting and licking the paint from her face.

  “Patsy’s fallen,” Jack said. “The provost shot her dead.”

  “Not Patsy!” The Quaker gave a sad shake of his head. “Oh, to lose a heart so young and brave . . .”

  “We had to leave her in Trinity Churchyard,” Titus added. “Tell the Stitch we depend on him to see to her burial.”

  “I will.”

  Before boarding the pettiauger, everyone took turns bidding a quick farewell to the Quaker and Bandit, who was being left in the Quaker’s care. The women each gave the man a hug and a kiss on his pate.

  The Quaker gathered Bandit into his arms, and began making his way up the dock, when Jack called soft, “For the record, Quaker—what is your name?”

  “Elbert—” he said with a little waggle of his fingers. “Elbert Hadley.”

  “Farewell, Elbert.”

  “Aye,” Sally said, “he’s got the look of an Elbert, na?”

  Anne and Sally climbed into the boat, and sat together on the cross-thwart nearest the bow. Jack set the oars into the locks. Titus rearranged the bags and parcels they had tossed into the boat with such haste earlier.