“This gentleman is right,” another man put in. Dark haired and dressed in buckskin, he looked like an Indian himself. Leaning on a long rifle, he added, “Even if you don’t figure the British are after us, we ought to be careful. I know for a fact there’s a big gang of bandits up here now, holed up in the Clove, not ten miles from here.”
“Well, then, we’ll put the fire out in a few moments,” VanDam said. “This is Bear Springs, so we’re getting toward Fort Clinton and West Point Village. We’ll leave here as soon as there’s light, but the passage down is worse in some places than what we’ve just gone up. We can’t take that on until we can see. Besides, the rain was heavy a few weeks ago, and I’m afraid we’ll have trouble getting the horses through.”
Everyone took a branch from the fire and by that light found a place to sleep. In smoky, chilly darkness, Angelica and Jack lay down together on some dry leaves. Tonight their cloaks would have to keep out the cold.
The ground was hard and the saddle blanket they’d rolled up for a pillow smelled pungently of Hal. Angelica adjusted her pocket so she wouldn’t lie on her mending kit.
She shivered and shook, and couldn’t seem to stop. The rush of the last few hours had sent her swirling into a whirlpool of violence. The end of the Judik still buzzed in her ears.
Jack felt her tremble. “With your permission,” he whispered, enfolding her in one brawny arm. The cold was so penetrating and she felt so forlorn that she welcomed being drawn against his big, warm body.
There was comfort at once in his closeness. “Poor Captain Vanderzee,” she whispered.
“Well, he may have escaped,” Jack comforted. “I wouldn’t rush to give a tough, old boot like him up for lost.”
Angelica, deep in a bout of shivering, didn’t answer.
“What I’m worrying about,” Jack said, “is what we’ll find as we travel. I have a feeling that this war is going to follow us all the way.”
“You mean, we may find the enemy at Kingston?” Angelica said with a shudder.
“We may come down straight into a battle. The British would love to knock your General Putnam out of West Point.”
Angelica trembled, every inch of her, in a steady quiver.
“There, there, Angel,” Jack whispered. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“I’m trying not to be, but it’s still such a long way home. And, now—now I don’t know what I’ll find.”
“We’re inside the belly of the war,” Jack said, his arm tightening around her. “So take an old soldier’s advice. From now on, just take things as they come and try not to imagine what’s ahead. Right now, you’ve got to get some sleep.”
Gently, carefully, he brushed her cheek with his lips and then settled down behind her. It took a while for her shudders to subside, but with the warmth of Jack’s arm around her, Angelica finally lost consciousness.
***
They’re out there, Jack thought. I can smell them.
An owl hooted twice along the ridge, but was it really an owl? He doubted it.
Someone is watching, signaling. He could sense it in the pricking of the hair at the back of his neck.
They won’t come in darkness, though. Not in this terrain.
He lay still, letting the warmth of the woman in his arms soak in. Sleep, he told himself. Sleep.
My sweet American prize! It’ll be a hard day’s work to keep us both alive, but I can do it. I must.
***
“I want your Chief!” Jack shouted.
Hal, reins loose, guided by his master’s legs alone, was walking fast in a circle. Angelica was holding on for dear life.
Jack’s blonde head was in constant motion, watching the brigands who menaced them. Both his pistols were cocked and ready.
“Easy!” Jack muttered to the horse.
He was surveying the ragged troop that encircled them with an expression of cool contempt. Some of these were half-breed backwoodsmen, wearing buckskin and moccasins, thighs bare and hair braided Indian fashion. Some of them were garden variety, Scots-Irish roughnecks.
At dawn, just as they’d set out, they’d been attacked in a narrow defile. Not by the British, but by bandits.
It was hard to tell exactly what had happened because their long column had broken up, but it seemed some of the militia had managed to escape. Others had simply taken off into the woods, abandoning their pack animals. Some of the precious gunpowder had been captured.
Angelica and Jack were swept up in the first attack, for they had been near the front of the train. Jack had unloaded his pistols into them, then, charging, he’d slashed several men with his cavalry sword.
Angelica had hung on and pressed her face against Jack’s back. There had been a couple of close calls. In one, like a nightmare, Jack’s saber had flashed and then Angelica had seen a spurting stump and a flying hand.
They tried to escape, but Jack quickly saw they were hemmed in. He’d stopped the horse and taken the time to reload, a task completed at incredible speed. When these men closed in upon them, they found themselves facing pistols—pistols that had already proclaimed the marksmanship of their owner.
“You can only get two of us!” a bandit yelled. He made a feint toward Hal. The horse knew his job for, just at the last moment, he shied out the man’s reach then resumed his steady circling.
“And one of ‘em will be you,” Jack replied, aiming. His color up, the scar across his cheek blazed.
“Hey, Bill! Back off!”
A huge man with a patch over his eye and a tricorn pulled down over his forehead suddenly leapt into the defile. “We’ve got ‘em trapped. There’s nothin’ he can do.”
The speaker’s hair was the color of dirty straw. He was wearing a jacket that had once been some rich dandy’s pride, but was now stained with dirt and blood.
“You been callin’ for the Chief?” he shouted to Jack.
“Be that you, sir?”
“Yep. I’m Chief M’Bain.”
“Well, Mr. M’Bain,” Jack replied, “I’m wanting to ask terms of you, if you’re in charge of this irregular army.”
M’Bain let loose a kind of mirthless sound that apparently passed for a chuckle. The sound made Angelica’s blood run cold.
“A sense of humor, by God,” M’Bain replied. “But I don’t give terms.”
Jack’s pistol pointed at him. “You should.”
Then his arm suddenly jerked around. Angelica started in terror as the pistol discharged next to her with a black powder flash and boom.
A pistol behind them boomed, too, almost at the same time. This ball went wild. Harmless to Jack and Angelica, it was not so to their attackers, one of whom howled and grabbed his calf with both hands. The ruffian Jack had shot came diving, dead as a duck, to land at their feet.
From all sides men leapt. Hal reared and slashed at them with his hooves. Angelica gripped the horse with her knees as she clung to Jack’s waist with every shred of her strength.
Above all the commotion, they heard a roar of “Hold!”
It was the chief, holding up his hands. His men obeyed.
The face that turned to them cracked in a fierce, black-toothed grin. “My mistake. Thought you was one of them damned pitiful Quakers, sir,” M’Bain said. “Quite a shot from horseback, and with that thar little pistol. You must be a military man.”
Jack grinned back. The undischarged pistol in his left hand remained ready.
“Captain Church, at your service, Chief M’Bain,” he said, as politely as if introducing himself to a gentleman. “We can pay you a good ransom, sir. It can be easily arranged, but my cousin here must arrive at her uncle’s house unharmed.”
“You cain’t get all of us—” some lout began to shout again.
“But you’ll be next!” Jack declared, turning to point his gun at the speaker.
The arrogance of the move, Angelica sensed, was calculated. “Hey! Leave the talkin’ to me!” M’Bain roared.
Quite unafraid,
the one-eyed hooligan came ambling down the defile. “In the days before the war,” he remarked, squinting at Angelica, “there was certain sea captains who’d’ve given me a pretty penny for a lass like that one there.”
“Well, I can see you’re a man with an eye for profit, Chief M m ’Bain,” Jack replied smoothly. “But with the war, I’d imagine the risk of taking her down the river is pretty high. It’s not only safer but surer money to deliver my cousin to her home unharmed.”
“Hmm.” M’Bain rewarded this speech with a long considering stare. A mercenary glow had begun to brighten his remaining, watery eye. “You haven’t talked about yourself, captain. Ain’t you worth a ransom too?”
“I can take care of myself, chief,” Jack replied. This remark was met by some scattered hollow laughter.
“You know, I thought when I saw that dour suit, you was gonna be one of those prissy sticks who’d squeal for mercy, but you’re a cool one,” M’Bain observed.
Angelica clung to Jack, acutely aware of the men surrounding them. They were covered with brands and scars, those silently speaking rewards of past felonies.
“Well, she ain’t yer cousin, that’s for sure,” a new voice shouted, and a huge man pushed through the throng.
Angelica gasped. It was a notorious villain, Davy Bell, a man who had been whipped out of Kingston only a few years ago.
“She’s the niece of Mynheer TenBroeck of Kingston, chief. Bleed the Dutch bastard white if he wants his precious girl back. But let me take her there,” Davy added, grinning.
“Well, well,” M’Bain mused. “You bin foolin’ with me, captain? A TenBroeck gal! Good ransom indeed.”
“I’ll fight him for her, rough and tumble,” cried Bell. “I claim vengeance on him, for Tom and Royal and for Neddy, whose hand he’s taken. This fancy tosh is good with a pistol and a saber, sure, but how good is he fist to fist?”
“I took your friends in battle and they died like men,” came Jack’s nerveless reply. “I don’t see any cause for crying vengeance over what’s done in a fair fight, but I can whip you, sir, at any contest you name.” He directed his next remark to M’Bain. “Shall we make it a wager, chief?”
“Jack!” Angelica gasped again.
What on God’s earth was he doing?
“Your word, M’Bain,” Jack cried, throwing back his hatless golden head. “No harm comes to this lady if she brings you a fat ransom, and if I whip this soldier of yours.”
There was a heart-pounding pause.
“Sure,” said M’Bain in an offhand tone. “Why not?”
To Angelica’s utter dismay, Jack turned and handed her the pistol. “If I fail,” he said, his eyes cold, “use it.”
“I know how,” she said, gazing into his face, now hard and battle-fierce.
“Good. Kill yourself or one of them. It’ll be your choice, but with these animals, I recommend the Roman way.”
As he spoke, his eyes burned silver fire into hers. She gulped and nodded, fear driving through her like a knife of ice.
“Sit tight,” he commanded, slipping down.
The outlaws cheered as Jack threw off his coat and faced the scarred giant in the yellow shale of the defile. The smile of his opponent was broad, his few teeth, wolfish.
“Abelard ‘im, Davy!”
“Gouge his eyes out!”
“At your pleasure, sir.” Jack made a careless gesture, half turning, apparently dropping his guard.
With a whoop, long fingernails extended, Davy Bell hurled himself at Jack, intending to overwhelm the smaller man with his weight and size. Jack, however, seemed to understand the game well. So well, in fact, that Angelica hardly saw what happened next.
Somehow, before the long arms reached Jack, he had ducked, turned, and delivered a ferocious kick to his opponent’s groin. As the bigger man choked and bent, Jack whirled around to catch him by the greasy pigtail.
Jamming a knee into Davy’s back, he yanked his opponent’s head back. A knife that had appeared from somewhere made a lightning pass over the man’s exposed, hairy throat. Angelica watched in horrified fascination as blood welled behind the silver flash.
“Get back!” Jack roared, as the others came surging. “Or I’ll stick this pig!”
“Cheater!” C c ame cries from all sides. “No weapons in rough and tumble!”
“Why not?” Jack sneered. “He’s got a blade.”
He gave Davy a vicious shake, ferocious as a terrier with an enormous badger. The hidden weapon—a large, bright, scalping knife—fell with a rattle onto the gravel.
There was a breathless silence. Then M’Bain began to laugh—and laugh—and laugh.
“Go on. Stick him, captain,” he cried, red in the face. “Serve him right, the damn fool, falling for that old trick you played.”
As if he meant to take the invitation seriously, Jack jerked Bell’s bushy head back again.
“Ah, but hold up there,” the chief amended. “Consider that there’s plenty of us to avenge poor Davy.”
The only reply Jack made was to sweep the knife again across Davy’s throat. A fresh line of blood appeared, joining the one made earlier in trickling down onto his dirty shirt. His eyes looked as if they were about to pop out of his head.
“But fewer than are breathing now, I promise, will be around to drink victory,” Jack replied.
Suddenly bringing the handle of his knife down with a resounding crack on top of Davy’s head, Jack kicked him down onto the ground. There was no further movement from that quarter. The giant lay unconscious, face down in the gravel.
M’Bain gave an enormous shrug. “You got yourself a deal, captain. Ransom, and no harm while we’re waitin’ on it. I can see you’re a man of good stomach. We’ll take plate, gold, cattle and horses for the lady. How much does uncle want you home, dear?” M’Bain’s single eye flashed a terrifying blue wink at Angelica.
“Ten horses and one hundred golden sovereigns.”
Angelica gasped again, but Jack was speaking with the assurance of a man who knew such booty existed.
“Make it two hundred.”
Angelica’s jaw dropped. Like all gentry, her family was land rich and cash poor. Jack frowned, shook his head as if considering. Then he said slowly, “It’ll skin Mynheer TenBroeck, but I’m certain it can be done, chief.”
A growl of greed and pleasure arose as the men contemplated their share—and the prospective ruin of a rich Mynheer.
“All right, this lady shall go home unharmed. Here me, there shall be no more said or done to either of these folks,” M’Bain turned and roared at his men.
“Your hand is more than your word,” said Jack gravely. “Give me your hand in front of your people.”
“Give me your knife first, captain.”
“Only in your chest.” Jack replied, letting out a laugh of his own and tossing back his loose mop of hair.
Angelica shuddered, but to her surprise M’Bain’s eye glittered with approval. “Christ! Damn me to hell, but I like you, captain,” he replied. “All right, keep your knife, but give me your word you won’t try to escape.”
With ceremony, M’Bain spat into his hand. Jack did the same and clasped the extended paw.
“You got you rself a deal,” M’Bain said, firmly shaking. “Safety for ransom.”
They went ever west into the mountains. They passed one habitation during their journey, a lone, burned-out cabin. In the morning light, at a place where there was a view of the river through a break in the ancient trees, they saw an ominous pall of smoke.
“Redcoats raidin’ up the river,” M’Bain observed to Jack who rode beside him. Angelica had noticed, he didn’t head up his men, but rode behind.
“Don’t want any of them who are sore about Tom and Royal and Ned and Davy and shootin’ us in the back,” he said. Then he let out another high-pitched snort of laughter. The chief’s most alarming statements, Angelica observed, were regularly punctuated with that joyless sound.
Reaching int
o the deep pocket of her apron, Angelica’s fingers grasped her chatelaine. She had no idea whether she would ever sit placidly doing handwork again, but simply touching the familiar shapes, sensing the texture of the patches, had a calming effect.
How odd, she mused, as her fingers blindly drew the shape of her stork’s-head scissors, that such a delicate and fragile thing can provide comfort, even in the midst of a nightmare.
It was comforting, too, the knowledge that this skill of hers was above all else, hers alone. There was no power great enough to take it from her.
***
The sun was high when they reached their objective, a notch between the mountains called the Clove, a bit of table land wedged between formidable cliffs where three dirt tracks met. Smoke signaled human presence as they approached.
A few houses made a crossroads village surrounded by a haphazardly constructed cluster of sheds, lean-tos and cattle pens. The largest dwelling was a pair of cabins joined by a covered dog trot. There was also a small saddlebag cabin with a central chimney.
Trees had been felled, leaving the ground muddy and bare. The giants lay where they’d fallen, only their branches lopped off for fuel.
They passed a pen crammed with horses and cattle. By one of the sheds, women were huddled, engaged in butchering. Spotted, scrawny pigs and thin, yapping dogs, as well as a herd of dirty, tow-headed children roamed in equal numbers through the muddy central avenue.
“Well, here we are,” said their captor, displaying his blackened teeth. “Home sweet home.”
“When will you let us leave?” Jack asked in a casual tone.
“When I see my gold and my horses,” M’Bain replied. “Yon preacher can be our messenger. I’m letting him go in a couple of days, but I ain’t done with him yet.”
The Chief pointed at a pale-faced man slumped despondently by one of the huts.
“And lis’en up the rest of ye!” he roared at his men. “I’ll have the right hand fingers of the first fellow who messes with these folks, especially this lady here—the goose that’ll lay our golden egg.”
Angel's Flight Page 10