The Golden Flask

by Jim DeFelice

  Jake stepped toward Egans, staring into the white man's tattooed face. The paint he had been wearing during their first meeting had faded, but a hard mask still obscured his emotions. "Have you met Bauer before?"

  "Never."

  The man whose eyes were locked with his had tried to murder him a few days before. Jake searched behind those green disks for some sign that he could trust him. But there are rarely obvious flags of a man's deeper intentions. The white Indian could easily be part of a ruse by Howe to throw the Americans off his track, just as his letter might be. Perhaps Black Clay Bacon himself had done Jake one better, arranging the show like an Italian puppet master.

  Even Keen's death might have been faked.

  "You will be a messenger for Howe," Jake told Egans. "Sent from Burgoyne. Claus can arrange for the necessary papers."

  "I have them in my pocket," said the Dutchman, patting his jacket.

  "We will deliver Bauer to his doorstep and revive him," said Jake. "Egans will arrive at nearly the next moment, exhausted from his flight south. He will be in the house when Bauer talks to his brother."

  "How does this help?" asked Egans. "Am I to ask where Howe is?"

  "No. You say nothing at all, only listen. Clayton will see that New York is not under attack. He will tell his sister what happened; he'll have to explain that he is alive. He will either be angry that he gave away the secret, or he will gloat that he fooled us. You will be in the room nearby; all you have to do is listen."

  "He may not say where the attack truly is," said Daltoons.

  "He will. He's too full of himself to keep his mouth shut in victory," said Jake.

  "My opinion is firmly set on Philadelphia," van Clynne protested after the others had gone to see to the plan's contingencies. "The wig-maker's intelligence is impeccable, and I have never known one to lie."

  "If I didn't think you might be right," said Jake, "I wouldn't be going back to Manhattan." He poured some of the strong liquid Alison had made into a cup for the Dutchman, then turned to the shelf to find one for himself.

  "You're going back yourself? But Egans and Daltoons have just left."

  "They have to find Culper's men at the rendezvous first. I'll still beat them."

  One thing the Dutchman was good at: adding two and two and jumping to the proper conclusion. "You don't trust Egans, do you?"

  "Why should I?"

  "I would trust him as I trust my mother."

  "You told me once you would never trust your mother." Jake sat at the table-and began sipping the coffee concoction. Its taste was roughly akin to the squeezings of a tortured boot, following an uphill trudge through a berry bramble. "We cannot afford to trust him."

  "You must rely on blood, sir. When a Dutchman gives his word, it is as good as gold."

  "I have seen gold hammered into many shapes," said Jake. "Including a flask that very fortuitously fell into our hands — exactly as it would if a charade were being played. Doesn't his running across us both on our way south bother you? Especially given Keen's appearance?"

  "A coincidence, surely. I converted him to the truth."

  "If he has come over to us, then both he and I will have the plan. In any event, the true destination will come pouring out, no matter how complicated Howe's ruse."

  "You are walking into the lion's den," said van Clynne. "If I did not know better, I might think you interested in stealing another taste of the lady's lips."

  "I'll be safe enough," answered Jake, who could not conceal a slight smile.

  Van Clynne sipped the coffee for the first time. "This is worse than the vinegar they served me in prison."

  "I don't know. I've had worse."

  "I had forgotten the extent of your torture by the Mohawk," said van Clynne. "I intend to complain to Culper of this at my earliest convenience. There are standards to be kept if one is to undertake a secret mission. The least they could have done was have Smith leave some of his beer in the house."

  "You better keep your voice down; you'll hurt Alison's feelings. She's the only one left in the house."

  "Her feelings are incapable of being trampled, that much is clear," said the Dutchman. "She has the spirit of a herd of wild horses, and more energy than ten boys loosed from school for the summer."

  "Speaking of Alison . . ." Van Clynne immediately increased his guttural garrumphs, pulling at his beard as if to amplify the effect. "I do not think, sir, that I should be charged with minding her. It is a task without reward."

  "Now how do you know what I'm thinking?"

  "Your embarrassed smile quite gives you away when you are preparing to hand over an odious mission." Van Clynne sighed deeply. "The Dutch are as fond of children as any race, but I am afraid you will find me an exception to the general rule. Children and I do not mix; we are like the proverbial cruets of water and beer."

  "She's clearly not a child any more, Claus. She seemed to grow five years in the past few days."

  "Do not let the dress sway you, sir," warned van Clynne. "Many a man has been wiled into submission by the strategic swish of a skirt."

  "Granted. But I know you won't be."

  Van Clynne signaled his frustration by twirling his beard around his finger. "She is at a difficult age," he warned. "Fresh on the door of adulthood."

  "I'm not asking you to raise her, just to take her to Culper. He's promised to find a place for her in Westchester."

  "I must point out that it is quite impossible to govern the young where love is involved."

  "How do you know she's in love?"

  "I would think it obvious," said van Clynne, "from the way she moons about in your presence."

  "My presence?"

  "Absolutely."

  "Nonsense. There was a boy on Long Island she fell in love with. He is a year or two younger than she, but I think it an excellent match. They will be very happy together."

  Van Clynne snorted. "I tell you solemnly, sir, it's you she's interested in."

  "Impossible," said Jake.

  "No it's not!" Alison burst through the door from the other room, where she had stood listening to the entire conversation. "I'm not too young for you. Many girls my age marry."

  Never on the battlefield had Jake been taken by such surprise. He stood stunned a full minute before replying.

  "That's certainly true," he admitted gently, "but in this case, I think, it's more complicated."

  "I shall like to watch you wrestle yourself out of this one," declared van Clynne. "I only wish I had some of Smith's excellent ale to assist my appreciation."

  "Don't you have something to do, Claus?" asked Jake.

  "No. Not at all. I have already spent a full day's exertion . . . but perhaps I had best be getting some fresh air." It was not the look from Jake that changed the Dutchman's mind, but a glance from Alison twice as murderous.

  The girl flew into Jake's arms as soon as the door shut.

  "I loved you from the moment you swept me up in my father's inn," she declared. "Couldn't you tell?"

  "You are beautiful and brave," said the spy, his honey-sweet tone hinting strongly at the "but" that would follow. Well-used to breaking hearts, Jake had given this species of speech many times. Yet rarely had he felt this much tenderness delivering it.

  "My heart is pledged to someone else," he told her, lightly pushing her from his chest.

  "Someone older?"

  "Yes."

  The widow Sarah Thomas would have been greatly pleased to hear this, though she would have treated the words as someone does a clipped coin, not quite at face value. Still, they were meant sincerely. Jake might have made an even more eloquent case, his words rivaling many a poet's, had he explained further that before any earthly love, his life was pledged several times over to the cause of Freedom. But even Milton's tongue would have had no more effect on Alison than the simple shake of Jake's head when she asked if she might not change his mind.

  "You must go with Claus to the city," Jake ordered. He pulled up his
coat and prepared for her rebuttal and was greatly surprised when none came.

  "All right," she said meekly. "You win. Let me just go and gather my things."

  Jake narrowed his eyes as she left the kitchen to go upstairs. Nonetheless, he trusted the Dutchman would be more than a match for her. He himself had a great deal to do if he was going to finish this little puzzle.

  Chapter Forty-two

  Wherein, a happy coincidence procures a truce.

  “Jake promised I could stay with him!”

  Van Clynne shook his head as violently as if he were warding off a bee. "At least use more art in your lies. He charged me with taking you to Culper not ten minutes ago." The Dutchman puffed out his cheeks and set his hands at his belt, standing in the middle of what passed for the small house's great room. As soon as Jake had left, Alison had run down the stairs, veering from the front hallway when she saw it filled by van Clynne. She had then installed herself in a wooden chair, obviously reluctant to accept the Dutchman as her guide.

  "I saved his life," said Alison sharply, curling her arms against the wooden Windsor chair as if van Clynne would try to physically pull her up. "And this is how I am repaid?"

  "I might make the same claim several times over," agreed the Dutchman. "Gratitude has become a lost art. Nonetheless, you and I must attend to our mission. The lieutenant colonel has charged us with our roles, and as he often says, an expedition has but one leader."

  The phrase proved considerably more persuasive than van Clynne had hoped, as the girl stopped sulking and nodded her head — slowly, to be sure, but nonetheless in the direction which indicates agreement. She unfurled her arms and rose from the chair meekly, walking across the braided rug to join him.

  "We must set out immediately," said van Clynne, suspicious but nonetheless anxious to get started. "I know of a man not far from here who will take us across the river at a quite reasonable price. Along the way, we may be able to find ourselves a better breakfast than what we have been provided."

  "I approve," said the girl so quickly you would have thought she was offered a chance to buy Manhattan for a bushel full of trinkets. "I had only a few bites of onions."

  "Consider yourself lucky," said van Clynne, turning toward the door.

  "You didn't like my cooking?"

  "There was not enough of it," he said hastily. "You see the deprivations a soldier is treated to. You will be much more comfortable with Culper at the coffeehouse; food will be plentiful, and you may get your spying done between helpings of meat and potatoes, as it were."

  "You're right," said the girl. But as she reached the threshold to the hallway foyer, she put her hand to her stomach and groaned heavily. "Oh, I think the onions are acting up."

  "Are you sick?"

  "No, I just — is there a chamber pot handy? Quickly!"

  "Of course, child. Right in the kitchen cupboard, I believe, empty and clean."

  "I will be all right in a moment," she said. "If you will excuse me."

  Van Clynne nodded but followed along back to the kitchen. He was not so unschooled as to believe the stomach ache would not disappear the moment he was out of sight.

  "You're not coming in to watch, I hope," she groaned, nearly bending.

  It was so powerful a performance that van Clynne retreated, closing the door behind him. He returned in an instant, however, setting a jar at the edge of a footstool where it would be knocked over when the door was opened. He then hurried outside to guard the room's only window.

  Nearly ten minutes passed with no sign of Alison. Worried that he had overlooked some contingency, the squire took a peek inside the window and found the room was empty. Unsure if she had made her exit or was merely hiding, he propped his hat at the bottom of the window to make it appear as if he were sitting below. Then he ran back inside to find his stool and jar precisely as he had placed them.

  "How in God's name did you manage this, child?" he asked aloud as he surveyed the empty room. "You have not gone out the door, and the window is still closed fast."

  Van Clynne spotted the pantry closet at the side of the fireplace. Smiling to himself, he tiptoed forward, undid the latch as quietly as possible, then pulled the door open with a sharp flick of his wrist.

  "A-ha," he shouted to the cobwebs.

  After considerable beard tugging, the Dutchman decided there must be some secret panel inside this cupboard, perhaps beneath the floorboards.

  "This is what comes of teaching children letters at an early age," he complained as he bent to examine them. "I have no doubt her parents were indulgent, and allowed her to read poetry at will. I would not be surprised if she had been given Shakespeare in her crib."

  No sooner had van Clynne uttered these words than he heard a distinct creaking sound behind him. He whirled and just managed to grab Alison as she tried to spring from the pie safe out the nearby door.

  "You're ripping my dress," complained Alison. "Let go."

  "You and I must reach an agreement," said the Dutchman, "whereby we are no longer enemies. Otherwise, I shall lock you in chains and have you carried on a mule all the way to the coffeehouse."

  "I won't go to the coffeehouse," she said. "They're going to pack me off to upper Westchester, where my only excitement will be counting robins in a nest. I shall never be of any use to the Cause." Alison placed her hands on her hips and spoke in as plaintive a voice as ever Athena used to calm her father Zeus's famous rages. "How am I to stand for our enslavement by the English? Should not everyone do his or her duty according to their ability? And if their efforts are not used, will the Cause not suffer? Are not women to be the equal of men in this new republic? Otherwise, why fight at all?"

  "Well spoken; I begin to wonder if perhaps you have some Dutch blood in you." Van Clynne stroked his beard thoughtfully. "But serving as a soldier would not be a good use of your talents, even if you could pass as a young man," he added. "You are too free-spirited for all that drilling and standing in line."

  "I can be a spy like yourself."

  "An operative, my dear. We involve ourselves in considerably more than spying, Jake and I. We are at General Washington's call for missions of every stripe. We are the upper class of agents, as it were."

  The knit of van Clynne's brow grew to such proportions that not even Alexander could have untied it as he did the rope at Gordius. Scarce ever were the times the Dutchman had given such thought to a problem without the helpful lubrication of several barrels of fine ale: How to persuade the girl with a place where she might simultaneously be safe and fight the British at the same time?

  The wheels in his head turned slowly but inevitably. For he was Dutch, after all, and the idea eventually settled into place like a great eagle landing on a treetop.

  In truth, it did not take half the effort, though he made a great show of it. For van Clynne had made this suggestion to Jake several times already. But he had long ago learned that an idea that seems to suffer a hard birth is more easily accepted than one that slides into the world with nary a grunt.

  "A friend of mine on Long Island may have need for a girl to help on her farm," he declared. "The woman is a brave patriot and often assists the Sons of Liberty. Her farm is behind the lines, and danger is always flitting past the threshold in some form or another. She is said to be Dutch by marriage only, yet has taken to the ways of the race so strongly that it is clear her ancestors found it necessary to obscure her Netherlands ancestry until now."

  "Long Island?"

  "Mrs. Hulter has lived there many years. Her husband was a soldier, but the rumor has it that he died near White Plains. As yet, his death has not been officially confirmed."

  "Professor Bebeef s sister?"

  "You know the family?"

  Alison quickly told van Clynne the story.

  "And here we once more have proof of Dutch superiority," declared the squire, who saw the coincidence not as a product of luck but of a plan he had intuitively if unknowingly placed in motion some time before.
"There is a proper Dutch solution to every problem, my dear, as I'm sure the good missus will instruct. You will fight the British as fiercely as any Continental regiment. She is a fine brewer besides; you will do well to stay with her."

  "I will go there on one condition."

  "Name it," said the Dutchman.

  "We cannot abandon Jake," said the girl firmly. "We must help him this last time."

  "He has Daltoons's entire troop at his call," said the Dutchman. "They are meeting with reinforcements from Culper and will take over the farm and stand guard. Half the British army could arrive and they would be safe. We are as superfluous as a comb on a rooster."

  "Perhaps I am," suggested the girl, "but what of yourself? What would have happened at the engineer's if you were not there to rescue him?"

  "True," admitted van Clynne. "I did, after all, save the day. Many a time, I have had to pluck him from the fire just as his coat was singed."

  "He has already died once today without you. What if you are not nearby a second time?"

  The Dutchman contemplated that possibility. Actually, he did not worry so much about Jake as Egans, whom he believed would have a difficult time lying. This was a fatal flaw shared by all Iroquois, or so van Clynne believed. And the problem could, in turn, lead Jake to difficulty.

  Besides, if they were starting from two different points, it would be difficult to coordinate their rendezvous on the Jersey shore. And despite Jake's long-winded assurances, he would undoubtedly feel obliged to leave for Washington without him. Van Clynne was loath to lose his opportunity for an interview with the general a second time.

  "Perhaps we should reconnoiter the area as a reserve squadron," he suggested. "But they have already met you once; I'm not sure what pretense we can invent for your arrival."

  "They know me only as a boy. They won't recognize me as a girl."

  "Bauer saw you at the hill."

  "There is an old dress upstairs, and I will wear a hat. You, on the other hand, have already been seen in your disguise as a doctor; you will have to find a disguise or stay hidden."