rushed in, and managed to grab Johnson’s wrist, pulling hard. The cheek of the falling ax blade struck his knee a paralyzing blow, and he crumpled, pulling Johnson down with him, but got the other knee up in time to keep from being flattened beneath the other man’s body.
He jerked to the side, felt sudden heat at his back and the ping of sparks; they had rolled into the edge of the hearth. He reached back and seized a handful of hot embers, which he ground into Johnson’s face, ignoring the searing pain in his palm.
Johnson fell back, clutching his face and making short ah! ah! noises, as though he had not breath to scream. The ax was dangling from one hand; he sensed William rise and swung it blindly, one-handed.
William grabbed the ax handle, jerked it from Johnson’s grasp, took a good two-handed hold upon the throat of the handle, and brought the bit down on Johnson’s head with a choonk like a kicked pumpkin. The impact vibrated through his hands and arms; he let go and stumbled backward.
His mouth was full of bile; saliva overflowed and he wiped a sleeve across his mouth. He was breathing like a bellows but could not seem to get any air in his lungs.
Johnson reeled toward him, arms outstretched, the ax sticking in his head. The handle quivered, turning to and fro like an insect’s feeler. Slowly, horribly, Johnson’s hands reached up to take hold of it.
William wanted to scream but didn’t have the breath for it. Backing away in panic, he brushed a hand against his breeches and felt wetness there. He glanced down, fearing the worst, but saw instead the cloth dark with blood, and at the same time realized that there was a slight stinging sensation at the top of his thigh.
“Bloody… hell,” he muttered, fumbling at his waist. He’d managed to stab himself with his own dagger, but it was still there, thank God. The feel of the hilt steadied him, and he pulled it out, still backing away as Johnson came toward him, making a sort of yowling noise, yanking at the ax handle.
The ax came loose, releasing a gush of blood that rolled down Johnson’s face and splattered William’s face and arms and chest. Johnson swung the ax with a huff of effort, but his movements were slow and clumsy. William ducked aside, farting with the movement but regaining his nerve.
He tightened his grip on the dagger and looked for a place to stick it. Round the back, his mind suggested. Johnson was dashing one forearm uselessly across his face, trying to clear his eyes, the ax held in the other hand, sweeping to and fro in wide, trembling swaths.
“William!” Surprised by the voice, he glanced aside and was nearly struck by the wavering blade.
“Shut up,” he said crossly. “I’m busy.”
“Yes, I see that,” said Denny Hunter. “Let me help thee.” He was white-faced and shaking nearly as much as Johnson, but stepped forward and, with a sudden lunge, seized the ax handle and pulled the implement out of Johnson’s grasp. He stepped back and dropped it on the floor with a thunk, looking as though he might be sick at any moment.
“Thank you,” said William. He stepped forward and drove the dagger upward under Johnson’s ribs, into his heart. Johnson’s eyes opened wide with the shock and stared directly into William’s. They were gray-blue, with a scattering of gold and yellow flecks near the dark iris. William had never seen anything more beautiful and stood transfixed for an instant, until the feel of the pumping blood over his hand returned him to himself.
He jerked the knife free and stood back, letting the body fall. He was trembling all over and about to shit himself. He turned blindly and headed for the door, brushing past Denny, who said something that he didn’t quite hear.
Shuddering and gasping in the privy, though, he thought the doctor had said, “Thee did not have to do that.”
Yes, he thought, I did, and bowed his head upon his knees, waiting for everything to abate.
WILLIAM EMERGED AT LAST from the privy, feeling clammy and rubber-limbed but less internally volatile. Denny Hunter rushed past him and into the structure, from which explosive noises and loud groans were immediately heard. Moving hastily away, he made his way through a spatter of rain toward the house.
Dawn was some way off, but the air had begun to stir, and the farmhouse stood out against the paling sky, black and skeletal. He entered, feeling very uncertain, to find Rachel, white as bone, standing guard with a broom over Mrs. Johnson, who was wrapped tightly in a filthy sheet, thrashing a bit and making peculiar hissing and spitting noises.
Her husband’s remains lay facedown by the hearth in a pool of congealing blood. He didn’t want to look at the body, but felt it would be somehow wrong not to, and went and stood by it for a moment, looking down. One of the Hunters had poked up the fire and added wood; there was warmth in the room, but he couldn’t feel it.
“He’s dead,” Rachel said, her voice colorless.
“Yes.” He didn’t know how he was meant to feel in such a situation and had no real idea how he did feel. He turned away, though, with a slight sense of relief, and came to look at the prisoner.
“Did she… ?”
“She tried to cut Denny’s throat, but she stepped on my hand and woke me. I saw the knife and screamed, and he seized her, and…” She pulled a hand through her hair, and he saw that she had lost her cap, and the hair was loose and tangled.
“I sat on her,” she said, “and Denny rolled her up in the sheet. I don’t think she can speak,” Rachel added, as he stooped to look at the woman. “Her tongue is split.”
Mrs. Johnson, hearing this, thrust out her tongue in vindictive fashion and waggled the two halves of it independently at him. With the memory of the dream snakes vivid in his mind, he flinched in instinctive revulsion, but saw the look of satisfaction that crossed her face.
“If she can do that with her nasty tongue, she can talk,” he said, and, reaching down, took hold of the woman’s scrawny throat. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you, too.”
“Iss not my fault!” she said promptly, in such a rasping hiss that he nearly let go of her in shock. “He makess me help him.”
William glanced over his shoulder at the body on the hearth.
“Not anymore.” He tightened his grip, feeling the beat of her pulse against his thumb. “How many travelers have you killed, the two of you?”
She didn’t answer but stroked her upper lip lasciviously with her tongue, first one half and then the other. He let go her throat and slapped her hard across the face. Rachel gasped.
“Thee must not—”
“Oh, yes, I must.” He rubbed his hand against the side of his breeches, trying to get rid of the feel of the woman’s sweat, her slack skin, her bony throat. His other hand was beginning to throb painfully. He wanted suddenly to pick up the ax and smash her with it, over and over—crush her head, hack her to bits. His body trembled with the urge; she saw it in his eyes and stared back at him, eyes black and glittering.
“You don’t want me to kill her?” he asked Rachel.
“Thee must not,” she whispered. Very slowly, she reached for his burned hand, and, when he did not pull away, took it into hers. There was a roaring in his ears, and he felt dizzy.
“Thee is hurt,” she said softly. “Come outside. I will wash it.”
She led him out, half blind and stumbling, and made him sit on the chopping block while she brought a bucket of water from the trough. It had stopped raining, though the world dripped and the dawn air was moist and fresh in his chest.
Rachel bathed his hand in the cold water, and the burning eased a little. She touched his thigh, where the blood had dried in a long patch down his breeches, but let it go when he shook his head.
“I’ll bring thee whisky; there is some in Denny’s bag.” She stood up, but he grabbed her wrist with his good hand, holding hard.
“Rachel.” His own voice sounded odd to him, remote, as though someone else was speaking. “I’ve never killed anyone before. I don’t—I don’t quite know what to do about it.” He looked up at her, searching her face for understanding. “If it had been—I expected it to be in battle. That—I think I’d know how. How to feel, I mean. If it had been like that.”
She met his eyes, her face drawn in troubled thought. The light touched her, a pink softer than the sheen of pearls, and after a long time she touched his face, very gently.
“No,” she said. “Thee wouldn’t.”
PART FIVE
To the Precipice
CROSSROAD
WILLIAM PARTED FROM the Hunters at a nameless crossroad somewhere in New Jersey. It was not politic for him to go further; their inquiries regarding the position of the Continental army were being greeted with increasing hostility, indicating that they were getting close. Neither rebel sympathizers nor Loyalists who feared reprisal from an army on their doorstep wished to say anything to mysterious travelers who might be spies or worse.
The Quakers would have an easier time of it without him. They were so plainly what they were and Denzell’s intent to enlist as a surgeon both so simple and so admirable that, if they were alone, people would help them, he thought. Or at least receive their inquiries more kindly. With William, though…
Saying that he was a friend of the Hunters had been sufficient, earlier in the journey. Folk were curious about the little group, but not suspicious. As they drew farther into New Jersey, though, the agitation of the countryside increased markedly. Farms had been raided by foraging parties, both by Hessians from Howe’s army, trying to lure Washington into open battle from his lurking place in the Watchung Mountains, and from the Continental army, desperate for supplies.
Farmhouses that would normally have welcomed strangers for the news they bore now repelled them with muskets and harsh words. Food was growing harder to find. Rachel’s presence sometimes helped them get close enough to offer money—and William’s small store of gold and silver was certainly helpful; Denzell had put most of the money from the sale of their house with a bank in Philadelphia to secure Rachel’s future safety, and the paper money issued by the Congress was almost universally rejected.
There was no means by which William could masquerade as a Quaker, though. Beyond his inability to master plain speech, his size and bearing made people nervous—the more so as he, with the memories of Captain Nathan Hale vivid in his mind, would not say that he meant to enlist in the Continental army nor ask any questions that might later be presented as evidence of spying. His silence—perceived as menacing—also made people nervous.
He hadn’t spoken to the Hunters regarding their parting, and both Denzell and Rachel had been careful not to ask about his own plans. Everyone knew the time had come, though; he could feel it in the air when he woke that morning. When Rachel handed him a chunk of bread for breakfast, her hand brushed his, and he nearly seized her fingers. She felt the strength of his stifled impulse and looked up, startled, directly into his eyes. More green than brown today, and he would have sent discretion to the devil and kissed her—he thought she would not have objected—had her brother not just then emerged from the bushes, buttoning his flies.
He chose the place, all of a sudden. Naught to be gained by delay, and maybe better to do it without thinking too much. He pulled his horse to a stop in the middle of the crossroad, startling Denzell, whose mare bridled and danced at the jerk on her reins.
“I will leave you here,” William said abruptly, and more harshly than he had intended. “My way lies north”—he nodded in that direction, and thank God the sun was up so he could tell which way north was—“while I think that if you continue to the east, you will encounter some representatives of Mr. Washington’s army. If…” He hesitated, but they should be warned. From what the farmers had said, it was plain that Howe had sent troops into the area.
“If you meet with British troops or Hessian mercenaries—do you speak German, by chance?”
Denzell shook his head, eyes wide behind his spectacles. “Only a little French.”
“That’s good. Most Hessian officers have good French. If you meet with Hessians who don’t and they offer to molest you, say to them, ‘Ich verlange, Euren Vorgcsctztcn zu sehen; ich bin mit seinem Freund bekannt? That means, ‘I demand to see your officer; I know his friend.’ Say the same thing if you meet with British troops. In English, of course,” he added awkwardly.
A faint smile crossed Denzell’s face.
“I thank thee,” he said. “But if they do take us to an officer, and he demands to know the name of this theoretical friend?”
William smiled back.
“It won’t really matter. Once you’re in front of an officer, you will be safe. But as for a name—Harold Grey, Duke of Pardloe, Colonel of the Forty-sixth Foot.” Uncle Hal didn’t know everyone, as his own father did, but anyone in the military world would know him—or of him, at least.
He could see Denzell’s lips move silently, committing this to memory.
“And who is Friend Harold to thee, William?” Rachel had been regarding him narrowly beneath the sagging brim of her hat, and now pushed this back on her head to view him more directly.
He hesitated again, but after all, what did it matter now? He would never see the Hunters again. And while he knew that Quakers would not be impressed by worldly shows of rank and family, he still sat straighter in his saddle.
“Some kin to me,” he said casually, and, digging in his pocket, brought out the small purse the Scotsman Murray had given him. “Here. You will need this.”
“We will do well enough,” Denzell said, waving it away.
“So will I,” William said, and tossed the purse toward Rachel, who put up her hands in reflex and caught it, looking as much surprised by the fact that she had done so as by his own action. He smiled at her, too, his heart full.
“Fare thee well,” he said gruffly, then wheeled his horse and set off at a brisk trot, not looking back.
“THEE KNOWS HE is a British soldier?” Denny Hunter said quietly to his sister, watching William ride away. “Likely a deserter.”
“And if he is?”
“Violence follows such a man. Thee knows it. To remain long with such a man is a danger—not only to the body. But to the soul, as well.”
Rachel sat her mule in silence for a moment, watching the empty road. Insects buzzed loud in the trees.
“I think thee may be a hypocrite, Denzell Hunter,” she said evenly, and pulled her mule’s head around. “He saved my life and thine. Would thee prefer him to have held his hand and see me dead and butchered in that dreadful place?” She shuddered slightly in spite of the heat of the day.
“I would not,” her brother said soberly. “And I thank God that he was there to save thee. I am sinner enough to prefer thy life to the welfare of that young man’s soul—but not hypocrite enough to deny it, no.”
She snorted and, taking off her hat, waved away a gathering cloud of flies.
“I am honored. But as for thy talk of violent men and the danger of being in the vicinity of such men—is thee not taking me to join an army?”
He laughed ruefully.
“I am. Perhaps thee is right and I am a hypocrite. But, Rachel—” He leaned out and caught her mule’s bridle, keeping her from turning away. “Thee knows I would have no harm befall thee, either of body or soul. Say the word and I will find thee a place with Friends, where you may stay in safety. I am sure that the Lord has spoken to me, and I must follow my conscience. But there is no need for thee to follow it, too.”
She gave him a long, level look.
“And how does thee know that the Lord has not spoken to me, as well?”
His eyes twinkled behind his spectacles.
“I am happy for thee. What did He say?”
“He said, ‘Keep thy fat-headed brother from committing suicide, for I will require his blood at thy hand,’ ” she snapped, slapping his hand away from the bridle. “If we are going to join the army, Denny, let us go and find it.”
She kicked the mule viciously in the ribs. Its ears sprang straight up, and with a startled whoop from its rider, it shot down the road as though fired from a cannon.
WILLIAM RODE FOR some way, back particularly straight, showing excellent form in his horsemanship. After the road curved out of sight of the crossroad, he slowed and relaxed a bit. He was sorry to leave the Hunters, but already beginning to turn his thoughts ahead.
Burgoyne. He’d met General Burgoyne once, at a play. A play written by the general, no less. He didn’t recall anything about the play itself, as he’d been engaged in a flirtation of the eyes with a girl in the next box, but afterward he’d gone down with his father to congratulate the successful playwright, who was flushed and handsome with triumph and champagne.
“Gentleman Johnny” they called him in London. A light in London society’s firmament, in spite of the fact that he and his wife had some years before been obliged to flee to France to escape arrest for debt. No one held debt against a man, though; it was too common.
William was more puzzled by the fact that his uncle Hal seemed to like John Burgoyne. Uncle Hal had no time for plays, nor for the people who wrote them—though, come to think, he had the complete works of Aphra Behn on his shelves, and William’s father had once told him, in deepest secrecy, that his brother Hal had conceived a passionate attachment for Mrs. Behn following the death of his first wife and before his marriage to Aunt Minnie.
“Mrs. Behn was dead, you see,” his father had explained. “Safe.”
William had nodded, wishing to seem worldly and understanding, though in fact he had no real notion what his father meant by this. Safe? How, safe?
He shook his head. He didn’t expect ever to understand Uncle Hal, and chances were that was best for both of them. His grandmother Benedicta was probably the only person who did. Thought of his uncle, though, led him to think of his cousin Henry, and his mouth tightened a little.
Word would have reached Adam, of course, but he likely could do nothing for his brother. Neither could William, whose duty called him north. Between his father and Uncle Hal, though, surely…
The horse threw up his head, snorting a little, and William looked ahead to see a man standing by the road, one arm raised to hail him.
He rode slowly, a sharp eye on the wood, lest the man have confederates hidden to waylay unwary travelers. The verge was open here, though, with a thick but spindly growth of saplings behind it; no one could hide in there.
“Good day to you, sir,” he said, reining up a safe distance from the old man. For old he was; his face was seamed like a tin mine’s slag heap, he leaned on a tall staff, and his hair was pure white, tied back in a plait.
“Well met,” the old gentleman said. Gentleman for he stood proud, and his clothes were decent, and now William came to look, there was a good horse, too, hobbled and cropping grass some distance away. William relaxed a little.
“Where do you fare, sir?” he asked politely. The old man shrugged a little, easy.
“That may depend upon what you can tell me, young man.” The old man was a Scot, though his English was good. “I am in search of a man called Ian Murray, whom I think you know?”
William was disconcerted by this; how did the old man know that? But he knew Murray; perhaps Murray had mentioned William to him. He replied cautiously, “I know him. But I am afraid I have no idea where he is.”
“No?” The old man looked keenly at him. As though he thinks I might lie to him, William thought. Suspicious old sod!
“No,” he repeated firmly. “I met him in the Great Dismal, some weeks ago, in company with some Mohawk. But I do not know where he might have gone since then.”
“Mohawk,” the old man repeated thoughtfully, and William saw the sunken eyes fasten on his chest, where the great bear claw rested outside his shirt. “Did you get that wee bawbee from the Mohawk, then?”
“No,” William replied stiffly, not knowing what a bawbee was, but thinking that it sounded in some way disparaging. “Mr. Murray brought it to me, from a—friend.”
“A friend.” The old man was frankly studying his face, in a way that made William uncomfortable and therefore angry. “What is your name, young man?”
“None of your business, sir,” William said, as courteously as possible, and gathered his reins. “Good day to you!”
The old man’s face tightened, as did his hand on the staff, and William turned sharply, lest the old bugger mean to try to strike him with it. He didn’t, but William noticed, with a small sense of shock, that two fingers of the hand that grasped the staff were missing.
He thought for a moment that the old man might mount and come after him, but when he glanced back, the man was still standing by the road, looking after him.
It made no real difference, but, moved by some obscure notion of avoiding notice, William put the bear’s claw inside his shirt, where it hung safely concealed next to his rosary.
COUNTDOWN