“Of which you are supplied,” Ed shouted, “with an ample surplusage!” The guy in front of us turned and scowled again. Ochskahrt jumped as if he’d been stung.
Brackenridge ignored the interruption, gaveled down by Cook. “Recurring to the question, the acts described at Bower Hill might have been morally right—I say 'might'—but they were legally wrong. In strict construction, they were high treason—in which offense there are no accessories, only principals. They are cause for the President—in fact, it has now become his duty— to call out the militia.”
That sent a thrill through the audience. Brackenridge had their attention. He climbed on his surfboard, curled his hairy toes over the edge, and started maneuvering for the crest.
“Now it is true the President will reflect on the difficulty of getting the militia to march. Your neighbors from the midland counties and the upper parts of Maryland and Virginia, disinclined toward the excise themselves, will be reluctant to move against you. It will probably be necessary to bring them from New Jersey and the lower parts of the states. The Executive, for such reasons as were given in the Philadelphia riot of 1779, will be disposed to offer you—an amnesty.”
He left it at that for a moment. I shook my head in rueful admiration. The rebellion had only begun. Where the hell had the idea of an amnesty come from? It was like pulling the rip cord before the plane had finished taking off.
“But in order to obtain this amnesty,” the lawyer continued, “application to the Executive would come with better grace from those not involved. It is not in your interest to involve us—let us remain as we are, in order to act for you as mediating men with the government.”
“I have this day,” interrupted Parkinson, color in his face, “spoken in overhasty praise of Presley Neville, upon receipt of his letter. Now this—this self-serving lawyer attempts to transform our meeting from that of aggrieved neighbors insistent upon justice into one of huddled, frightened criminals. I...” He stopped, speechless with anger.
A quiet voice took everyone’s attention. “My brother lies dead by the hand of such a villain,” agreed Andrew McFarlane. He moved through the throng with a black scarf bound about his arm. Brackenridge whitened, took a step backward.
“I suggest,” offered Bradford, “that to obtain their normal span of years, the Pittsburgh delegates apply the grace of their backsides as mediating men with their saddles—yours, Brackenridge, would make a handsome target for Tom the Tinker!”
Everybody laughed. Brackenridge colored; the delegates looked at him as if to say “Another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.” For practical purposes, that ended the meeting. Brackenridge had pointed out to the rebels what they were letting themselves in for. The Pittsburghers wanted to follow Bradford’s advice and go home. The lawyer was reluctant: somebody— rebels, federalists, townspeople or their self-appointed leaders—might take retreat as evidence he wasn’t on everybody’s side at once. The crowd broke into small knots to talk things over.
The Pittsburgh delegation sort of half sneaked out to a nearby farmstead they were using as a local base. Brackenridge later resneaked back to the church, too late to get in on any decisions: Another conference had been called, for Parkinson’s Ferry—an enterprise of Benjamin’s older brother—on August 14. Like I said, those guys were crazy about meetings. We shuffled out, overflowing in anticipation of yet another miserable night on inadequate (but boy, were they authentic!) bedrolls on the hard damp ground.
Ochskahrt started tugging on my leather sleeve. I ignored him and turned to Ed, who looked as happy as I felt. “Did you see that gink in front of us?”
He opened his mouth, wrinkled his face, and sneezed all over me.
“Great. Swell. Marvelous. Well, I did, anyway, and he looked damned familiar.”
“Fabiliar? How in Lyzadder’s dabe gould dey loog— waid! You’re righd! Tage away dhe beard, dhe goonsgin gab, ad what’ve you god?”
“Edna Janof!” Ochskahrt exploded in a shouted whisper.
Ed sniffed. “Boy, is Lucy going to be sore.”
I said, “Why? She was bound to show up sooner or later.”
He said, “Because we didn’t think she’d be here, dressed up like a—” But I was gone before he finished, pushing back toward the church, swimming upstream in a torrent. I checked my rifle-priming: There was a way to end this nonsense—shooting Edna wouldn’t alter history! As I reached the door, I slammed into David Bradford.
“Oof! Your pardon, Mr. Bear. Stop a moment will you? I’ve a notion to chew over with you and your brother.” The banty-rooster prosecutor shouldn’t have known me from Adam. Rising from my sickbed with a phony bullet wound must have made me a bigger hero than I thought. I glimpsed Edna, then lost her.
“But I—”
“Come, man, there’s no hurry to climb back into that mob—you’d only have to listen to Brackenridge again. See, he’s buttonholed that frontiersman with the peculiar beard. What I have to say should interest you more.” Tingling with frustration, I struggled to get free, but he had a death grip on my own buttonholes. The crowd continued flowing out of the building like the dozen clowns that get out of their tiny car at the circus. Between buckskin-clad shoulders, I caught tantalizing glimpses of Edna conversing with Brackenridge.
The pressure forced us out into the churchyard. “All right, then, Bradford, what would you have of us?” He glanced around—silly, we were surrounded with humanity—leaned toward me, stood on his toes, and whispered: “We want you to help us with the Pitts-burgh-Philadelphia mail, day after tomorrow!”
“Help you?” Something vaguely historical nagged at the back of my mind. I didn’t like the fee! of it.
“Help us,” replied the fiery prosecutor. “We’re going to rob it!”
12
Assault on a Snail
JULY 26, 1794
A swell day for a robbery.
The morning of the twenty-fifth had arrived with the proverbial good news and bad news: We didn’t have to hold up the U.S. mail after all on the day Bradford had suggested; we got to wait until the day after that.
Today.
To say I was apprehensive would have been to understate things. Just like saying that I was quaking in my rustic brown suede shoes. I didn’t like this idea. As a many-times retreaded expoliceman, I was more comfortable being on the other side of the law—whenever it would let me. Never having been an Adam Ant fan (I’d always thought “stand and deliver” was the way ostriches laid eggs), I was learning this highwayman racket the hard way—on-the-rob-training.
I couldn’t complain about the scenery. There was a pleasant breeze. The sun was shining as if it had an extra quota of hydrogen to use up. The birds were singing their tiny lice-ridden heads off, high in the leafy branches above me. A tiny gray rabbit galumphed over to see what I was doing with that pretty roll of soft white paper. I shooed him away. A person needs some privacy.
The delay had been occasioned by three unforeseen factors. First, that evening at the rain-soaked campsite our Confederate delegation had staked out within fogbound sight of the Mingo Church—altogether too convenient to the cemetery to suit me—I’d had another attack of the poststasis horribles. Nothing terminal, it felt like the flu.
Second, David Bradford, attorney-out-law, had experienced a severe attack of his own—professional conscience. It would scarcely be suitable for the state prosecutor to be seen bossing an armed robbery. Would it? He was trying to invent the term “conflict of interest.” Anyway, he bowed out, abandoning the caper he’d himself proposed, while offering his cousin, William Bradford, as a surrogate. David Hamilton—I don’t know what kind of attack he was suffering—sent his own cousin, a fellow he introduced as John Mitchell. Gertrude Stein and William Shakespeare to the contrary, maybe there is something in a name.
Rough-hewn reliable John Baldwin sent his nearest relative—himself. I took pleasure in the brief, happy fancy of sending “cousin” Ed in my place, but it developed he was entertaining simil
ar ideas about me. Besides, we were both going to be busy that day— robbing the mail with cousin Bradford, cousin Mitchell, and plain, unadorned John Baldwin.
Now, a dozen yards through a heavy screen of trees, I could hear our horses whickering, the low voices of my fellow conspirators. I stayed where I was, squatting under a sycamore, allowed myself a cigarette. The rabbit came back. I chased it away again. I don’t know what I’ve got, but St. Francis can have all of my share he wants.
The third reason for delay was that, had we decided on the twenty-fifth of July, the Pittsburgh-Philadelphia mail wouldn’t have been there to rob. Neither rain nor sleet nor dark of empty slogan could keep wheels set in motion by Ben Franklin from rolling, even through the wilds of Pennsylvania. Every other week. Someone—rather typical in amateur revolutions—had gotten the schedules mixed; we didn’t receive word of our reprieve until the last minute.
I rose, disposed garments and weapons about my person, and limped back from my seventieth trip to the bushes that afternoon on the road to our assignation with history. It was just in time to interrupt an argument.
“Y’can’t do this to me, Eddie!” Lucy was yelling at Ed, while Ochskahrt hid his face in embarrassment. The horses were munching their way through tender growth encouraged by the past days’ rain. Our rebel allies were scouting up ahead. We weren’t quite near enough Greensburg yet to intercept the mail, but it paid to be cautious.
“Lover’s spat?” I asked with an amiable smile I didn’t mean, balancing my rifle across the saddle while
I tried to figure why it was taking me so long to learn to mount a horse. She pitched a shoe at me—Lucy, not the horse. I was grateful it was her husband’s moccasin, not one of her own Hessian Army surplus or a cast-off iron number. Ed lay against a sun-warmed rock, barefoot, with a straw thrust between his teeth.
“Strategy session,” offered Huckleberry Bear, spitting a bit of straw.
“We’re just discussin’ business at hand, Winnie.” She set her hands on her hips and stuck out her chin. “See here, I always did wanna pull a genuine holdup. I’ll be dogged if I’ll be left outa this one!”
“Lucy, do you mean—” I was still trying to get a foot in the stirrup. “—that we’ve stumbled across something you haven’t done already?” Pausing with the cavalry-practice, I grinned. “She must be getting old, Himschlag. I never knew anyone who could stop her from doing what she wanted—or her to stop and argue about it.” The second moccasin followed the first, catching me on the nose. I ducked behind my horse as her hand went to the skillet tied to her saddle, used for fatback and navy beans cooked over the campfire.
My horse cooperated by whipping his head around to bite me. Ed wasn’t much use in this discussion. He was rolling on the ground, laughing. “You think anyone could stop her if she didn’t want to stop herself?” he wheezed. “Come on, Lucy, ’fess up so we don’t have to speak of you in the third person anymore.”
The old lady glared at him, glared at me, and even included Ochskahrt, who cringed behind the cello case. “Consam you both, you’ve got me. Now that Edna’s here, there’s another job needs doin’, an’ I’m the one t’do it!”
Ed nodded. “Then it’s settled. You take the west branch at the next fork; we’ll head east to Greensburg. You’re a better shot than anybody here, and just to show you I’m sincere, look what I brought you.” He reached behind himself, stretched out a suede-wrapped package. Lucy untied the thongs, dark eyes lighting like a child’s at birthday time.
“A brace of pepperpots! For me? Eddie, y’shouldn’t have!” She was sentimental about the damnedest things. I thought she was going to burst into tears. Glistening on the butterscotch-tanned leather was a pair of strange-looking flintlocks, each with a complement of seven barrels, each marked “H. Nock, London” within the scrolls engraved on the lockplates. Not what you’d call high-tech firepower—you had to charge the flash-pan for each shot—but impressive nevertheless, for the just-post-Revolutionary period. She raised her skirt, looking for garters to tuck them into.
“Careful with those,” her husband observed. ‘They’re real—anachronisms that won’t be invented for another five or six years. Ooloorie sent them through before we left this morning, at my request. We need the clout—history won’t be changed by killing Edna Janof.”
“You bet your sweet turtle it won’t!” Lucy said, giving up on garters and tucking both weapons in her waistband. “But all that’s standin’ b’tween Albert Gallatin right now an’ a case of Hamiltonian wet-work is—”
We were interrupted by horse-clatter. Baldwin rode back into our midst, followed a minute later by Mitchell and Hamilton, riding together. Horses were another commodity that, like rifles, were scarcer in this century than the movies show.
Mitchell, unlike his twentieth-century namesake, was a small man, wiry and dark, with a nervous intensity that set everyone else on edge. He was one of those individuals whose shaving habits are hard to figure out: If he never shaved, why wasn’t his beard longer? If he did, why was his face always covered with hair a quarter inch too long to call stubble? He smoked a cigar—I hadn’t known they did that in 1794—much like his beard: If he never lit a new one, why did he invariably have a two-inch butt protruding from his face? If he did, why was it never longer than two inches?
Hamilton, on the other hand, looked like all his cousins, tall, fair, bulky. In place of the usual rifled Kentucky, he sported a double-tubed scattergun, about eight-gauge. Confronting him in anger would be a bit like staring into a pair of garbage cans. I approved.
We climbed aboard our all-terrain vehicles. The road ahead was clear. The scouting party had laid out a course that would avoid the town and any farmsteads in the area. “Something I’d like to ask about,” I said to Baldwin, riding ahead of me. “If we’re going to play highwaymen, what are we going to do about masks?”
Baldwin turned his treelike torso in the saddle, staggering his horse. “What do we want with masks, friend Edward?”
“That’s ‘friend William.’ Edward’s my brother over there. Masks are customary when essaying a holdup, or so I hear is the current fashion on the Continent.”
“Grrrrr!” Mitchell offered. “We have a continent of our own, nor shall we be like Englishmen, hiding our faces in defense of liberty!” Hamilton nodded agreement.
I shrugged, misquoting: “Masks? We don’ need no stinkin’ masks!” Ed grinned but kept his mouth shut. I was about to mention the Boston Tea Party, where Indian disguises had been de rigueur, when we came to the fork Ed had mentioned.
Lucy reined to a stop. “Guess I’ll leave you boys to your fun an’ games. I got business over t’Mr. Gallatin’s place.”
“Yes, Mother,” Ed replied, earning a poisonous glare. “Don’t shoot anyone I wouldn’t.” This time I was the prudent one.
“You boys be good. Eat your galoshes an’ wear your spinach. You find anything interesting in the mail, be sure an’ let your Auntie Ooloorie know about it. She’ll pass it on.” We nodded and took our separate paths, Ochskahrt nudging his horse Gallatinward behind her, his rustic instrument case bouncing against his thigh.
Minutes later, to the lingering memory of “I came to Pennsylvania with a cello on my knee,” we found a place for bushwhacking, where the path curved toward a ford in a creek, and arranged ourselves for the ambush. Then we waited. And waited. Another few centuries, and there were horse-sounds in the distance, their source concealed by heavy foliage. I didn’t seem to be learning the Junior Woodchuck routine. When the post-rider appeared around the bend, I was surprised to see him leading a spare cayuse whose hoofbeats I hadn’t been able to discern from those of the first. It made sense. An ancient Roman idea, the Pony Express with waiting relays of fresh mounts, hadn’t been reinvented yet. I was even more surprised to see that the mailman wasn’t armed.
Bradford and Mitchell had disposed themselves on either margin of the rutted road, this side of the bend. As rider and horses passed, they stepped into the tra
ce behind him. Baldwin, hiding with Ed across the road from me, took this as his cue. He rose, strode into view, armed only with the knife he left in the scabbard at his waist. “Afternoon, postman. What new tidings might you be bringing to the world from Pittsburgh Town?”
The rider reined up, his trailer bumping its nose on the tail of his own mount. “None so diverting as to occasion a delay of the United States mail, Mr. Baldwin.”
The big man started at being recognized by someone he didn’t know. There was a metallic triple clack behind the rider as Mitchell and Bradford hammered back their weapons. Baldwin sighed. “Give your pouch to me, rider, and be on your way. Tell the authorities in Philadelphia it was Tom the Tinker’s men relieved you of your burden.”
The mailman sat and thought it over. He was a kid, maybe seventeen and blondly whiskered, clad in the same buckskins everybody else wore. Then his leather-fringed shoulders slumped. He turned in the saddle, reeled the spare mount in like a jigged codfish, and stretched to reach back for the pouch. And turned around again with metal glinting in his fist.
Craaack! A beam of emerald, bright and solid as if made of steel, spiked toward Baldwin. There was a scarlet-misted explosion. The rugged woodsman’s headless body sank to its knees, collapsing forward into the dust.
13
TABERNA EST IN OPPIDUM
Splat!
Ed fired his weapon. I felt the numbing tickle of the Heiler-field brushing past my left elbow. A sulfurous billow of black-powder smoke spread across the road toward me. Bradford shouted, “In the name of God!” his horrified eyes glued, with Mitchell’s, to the rained form of Baldwin.
L Neil Smith - [North American Confederacy 06] Page 8