Angel's Flight (25 page)

“I will not say it again,” she murmured. “For if this comes to pass, I’ll try to be a good wife. Still, you should know. I will never be able to love you exactly as you wish.”

“I understand,” Arent replied in tones of special tenderness. “But allow me to hope time may change you. After the last few days, it’s clear to me that, in this world, anything can and does happen.”

Her cousin’s broad, jolly face had changed. Since his father’s murder, it had become a hard square, deeply lined with grief.

He looked so old, older than his thirty-six years, and who could wonder why? The last two years had been, as the new song said, The World Turned Upside Down. He’d lost his wife, and, now in violence, his father. Much of his livestock, built up over long years, had been rustled.

Angelica had always thought of her cousin as a plain, practical man, a stoic who quoted old saws. “While there’s life, there’s hope,” was one of his favorites.

She’d thought he had no imagination, and that he was untroubled by sensitivities which plagued her. After his warmhearted wife Trudy had died, he had been so philosophic Angelica found herself wondering whether he had any feelings at all—beyond the ordinary and earth bound.

Well, Angelica mused, Arent might be right. As long as you still breathed, there was sunlight and rain, and all the beauty of the green earth to bless you.

As they walked down to the house together, thoughts of Jack came in like a storm tide. Angelica wondered where he was, that beautiful man who had talked of principles and who had turned out to be a spy; that man who’d wedded her, bedded her, who’d taught her ecstasy.

Oh, where is he? Is his heart as full of me as mine is full of him?

If Jack were true, if he returned, he would discover that again destiny had conspired to take away someone he loved. Was it fate— that tangle of loyalties he talked about on their first day together?

Jack, she thought, oh, dearest Jack! I know there’s no use trying to stamp your fire out. I’ll have to grieve and suffer, just as I did for ‘Bram.

She yearned for numbness, for a place where the long knife of memory couldn’t reach. Sitting in a corner that evening, she wrote some of her stream of thought.

Quill in hand, she scratched,

My Dearest Jack, I will always love you. My love is white hot, like the inside of a kiln, like looking straight into the sun, but now I am alone with my duty, my terrible duty—and so many fears.

Was I only another game for you?

Maybe you are gone now, vanished. Maybe you are dead now like ‘Bram. Or, maybe, you’ve just slipped on another mask, become a man of war again, gone to St. Leger or Sir John Johnson, or gone back to Canada through the mountains. Oh, Jack! I tell you true—the man I thought I knew, I loved. Loved with all my heart.

She sat, staring at the words, words that seemed to glow back at her as if written in flame.

“What are you writing, Cousin Angelica?” The curious moon face of Kitty drew close.

“Oh, a lot of nonsense,” Angelica said. Quickly, she stood and rolled up the paper.

“Is it a letter? It’s making you cry.”

“There is a lot to cry about these days, don’t you think, Miss Kitty Cat?”

Brushing away her tears, Angelica went to the hearth, where a small fire kept the kettle hot. She bent to the coals and lit a corner of the paper.

“Good-bye, darling Jack,” she murmured. “Wherever and whoever you are.”

The paper flared. Angelica watched as the fire consumed her neat writing, and as it blackened and shriveled, the fire approached her fingers.

Suddenly, she heard Kitty’s sharp intake of breath. “Cousin Angelica!” the girl squealed. Her pale eyes were round as saucers beneath the frilly cap. “Let go!
”

Unable to hold on longer, Angelica released it. Trailing ashes and tiny sparks, it fell into the fire.

Like all of us, she thought. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Oh, if only the fire could burn the love from my heart!

Alone for a moment that evening in the bedroom she shared with Annie, Angelica faced the unfinished quilt. It lay where she’d left it some days ago, folded over a chair back.

All those bright colors, all those elaborate patterns now offended her eye. She went to it, picked it up and briskly folded it into another, smaller square.

Crossing the room, she opened an already full trunk. Without ceremony, she lifted the topmost blanket and violently stuffed the unfinished quilt beneath it.

The heavy lid fell back with a thump, and Angelica lost no time turning away.

I’m done breaking my heart over lost lovers! I want nothing more than security, nothing more than a firm place to stand. My cousin and his motherless children will be that place! It is what Uncle Jacob wanted. It is what Arent and the children deserve.

In spite of her stern resolve, an instant later, Angelica dropped down onto the bed and sobbed her heart out.

Chapter Twenty

Jack shook his head and tried to clear it. He felt sick. With one booted foot resting on a stump, he watched a small frontier town, Fort Coil, burn. Smoke rose into a flat, overcast sky. It slowly spread a greasy pall over the broad, low valley of the Chenango River.

Indians and green-coated whites were busy, sorting through the loot. They would carry away mirrors, Sunday dresses, and a few bits of silver, and the axes, knives, and guns with which the men of Fort Coil had tried to defend themselves.

The Indians usually traveled with a few of their womenfolk. Now, these fierce ladies argued and shoved each other, fighting over treasure they’d found.

Penned cattle snorted nervously. Three piglets the attackers had slaughtered lay at the edge of a fire made by a briskly burning cabin. As soon as the carcasses were thoroughly blackened, they would be retrieved for supper.

At first, Jack was simply glad that, at least, as far as he knew, there were no human bodies charring along with the pigs’. He wasn’t going to be able to eat anyway. Maybe there was something in the nearby springhouse more palatable. Perhaps cheese that the women, now glassy-eyed corpses, had prepared for their families.

One of the dead, no more than a girl, thin and fair, wore a man’s jacket and breeches. Her blonde, thick hair queued like a boy’s, she lay on her back staring at the sky. She, and everyone else who had tried to defend the little town, was dead, even the children.

Her clothes and that skinny build, he thought, fooled me. That, and the fact she’d been one hell of a good shot!

Apparently, she had been with her brother, loading for him. When he had fallen, she had picked up his gun and kept fighting. She had killed one man outright and badly wounded another before Jack got her. It wasn’t until just a few moments ago, as he happened past this spot, that he learned this final kill of his had been a woman.

Apparently, there was some local vendetta going on between these folks and the loyalists he’d fought beside. Jack had tried to save some of the people: an injured man, several women and children.

He had thought he’d done so, but then he’d made the mistake of
leaving the captives with the soldiers. He’d gone into the woods to try to stop the Indians torturing a man they’d caught. As soon as his back was turned, the soldiers had knifed and scalped the captured—the wounded man, the women and children alike.

It had been not only dangerous, but pointless, to lose his temper. However, Jack had, with one blow of his fist, knocked cold the soldier he’d left in charge.

Now, predictably, the rest of the men were furious.

“This ain’t no garden party, Englishman!”

“We can’t take captives! How the hell are we supposed to quick march through this brush with a bunch of damned women and babies?”

“Shit! Scalps is worth six pounds a piece at Fort Niagara!”

It’s just a matter of time before the rest of them jump me. Still, he thought, they have cause.

He rubbed his knuckles, which were already swelling painfully. He thought he’d broken the soldier’s jaw, a painful injury that would ruin the rest of that man’s life. He certainly hoped it would.

“What’s all this, Church?” said a voice. It was Colonel Butler, who was in charge of the operation. “Why’d you strike Mr. Sullivan?”

“He didn’t obey my orders,” Jack said. He turned to face Colonel Butler. His superior was another big man with a big temper.

“You’ve broken his damned jaw, you know,” Butler said. Jack snorted. He didn’t bother suppressing the grin.

“The men aren’t happy about you, Church. I can’t say I am either.”

“Those people were civilians.”

“There are no civilians in this war. What the hell is the matter with you? You fought in Ireland, didn’t you?”

Jack nodded. “Yes, I fought in Ireland, but I was a young idiot then.”

Even in those days, he’d believed there were rules—even in a war where a man might smile one minute and, in the next, plunge a knife into your gut. In twenty years of soldiering, Jack had never killed any unarmed person. He’d never raped or tortured, and he had never permitted such things to happen around him. Although he knew that on this empty frontier, rebels were often just as bad when they had the loyalists at their mercy, that didn’t make what had happened today at Fort Coil right.

“Everyone who’s not with you is against you. And,” Butler shouted, “you know we can’t take prisoners. The Indians have got all they want and there was no one here who could pay ransom. They would’ve just slowed us down.”

Jack shrugged. He didn’t care. He wished he knew a way to shoot every man who had participated in the slaughter.

As Butler spoke, Jack’s eyes wandered away to the dead girl. She had gone down fighting like a soldier. Of Dutch or German blood, she was so fair...

“You undermine morale,” Butler screamed.

Another outrage had been committed, this time upon the girl’s dead body. Jack never took scalps, although occasionally British officers did. Since he’d walked past, some jackal had scalped her. Her head and the remains of her golden blonde hair—what was left after the wide swath cut by the knife—was matted with blood.

“Morale?” With effort, Jack took his eyes away from the body. “Morale? That’s for soldiers, not this pack of dogs.”

“I ought to consider that a challenge, sir.”

“Be my guest,” Jack replied. His fingers flew to the hilt of his sword.

“Colonel Butler! Colonel Church! Gentlemen, we must fight the enemy, not each other.”

It was a subaltern, Lieutenant Warren, who stepped between them. He spoke beautiful English, but he was a dark half-breed, the son of a frontier commander who’d been raised in the ambiguous world that lay between the fort and the long house.

“I suppose you agree with Colonel Butler, lieutenant,” Jack said. The young officer shrugged. “War is war.” To give the phrase better emphasis, he spoke in Mohawk.

Jack looked the younger man straight in the eye. “And a man proves he’s a man by defeating warriors. Cowards kill women and children because it is easy. Cowards scalp those whom others have killed because it’s the only way they will ever bring such a trophy home.”

They had a few listeners now, including the friends of the soldier Jack had maimed, as well as some of the Indians. A growl rose in response to his words.

Jack found the dog pack sound appropriate. He almost hoped they would jump him.

He’d get his knife between as many ribs as he could. He’d relish the feel of forcing the wide blade through gristle, the crunch as it parted bone, the gurgling gasp as some bastard’s lungs filled.

Glorious! A blood-splattered, joyful battle before he was dragged to hell with them!

“Who is man enough to take my scalp?” he shouted. “You dogs can say it comes from a rebel! Collect the bounty!”

He inhaled, and felt the blood rush. The sun exploded from behind a cloud; he felt ten feet tall as
he
raised his blade. Feeling the splendid balance of it in his hand, he faced them and cut sunlight.

Some blinked as the gleam struck them, while some drew their weapons. Threats were growled, but they let him retreat to Hal. Only two shots followed his gallop into the forest.

***

On a bright, hot afternoon Jack sat with his back against Hal. The horse was down for Jack had ordered him there to rest his legs. He watched as three men, wearing buckskin dappled gold by the sunlight, slipped closer.

“No need for your knife,” one of them said.

Well, they are coming in together and announcing their presence, something they aren’t likely to do if they intend to murder me—right away.

Pistol in his lap, he waited in a state of looseness he had learned over the years. Focused—yet unfocused—Jack was ready for anything.

They didn’t need to say who they were. He’d fought beside them for weeks.

Two of the men were Mohawks: Keeps the Club and Isaac Blue Feather. The third was called Born in Fire by the others, but he was clearly a white captive, one so sunk in his new identity that only his yellow top knot, now darkened with paint, remained to testify to his origin.

Two fingers of his left hand were missing. Behind the crescent gorget on his chest were the terrible scars of a burn, while other scars hatched his face and neck. It seemed likely, given the name, that a long session at the torture fire had effected the change from white to Iroquois.

Jack assumed that was what had happened, but he had never heard of the Indians releasing a man they’d begun to offer to the fire god.

“Is that the scalp of my kill?” he demanded, deciding to challenge them on something, just to demonstrate his strength.

“No,” said Isaac. For a moment, he glowered at Jack resentfully. “But you have a good eye, Church. It is the scalp of the fighting woman’s brother.
”

“Are you going to Albany?” Keeps the Club asked, nudging his friend to silence. He showed his teeth in a mockery of a European smile, an expression Jack found completely unbelievable. “We can
show you the way.”

“Maybe.” Jack stared at the insincere smile. These men were clearly up to something. Nevertheless, it was strangely hard to rouse himself. “Wherever I am going, I can find my own way.”

“What will you do there?” Keeps the Club persisted.

“I’m not going to Albany, but back to the land of my family,” Jack replied.

Had Butler sent them?

Then, remembering, he realized not one of these men had shown much respect for Butler. All three were young warriors, out for glory honestly gotten by killing other warriors. He had not observed any of them bloodying their knives on women or children, although Keeps the Club had killed an old man and Isaac had killed an injured captive. That, however, was just the way of an Iroquois war party.

Jack didn’t condone such behavior, but after his years in
the
Canada
s
, he didn’t make much of it either. It was simply Indian practice. Exactly as the soldiers had protested, the old and the injured were impossible for a fast-moving raiding party to deal with in any other way.

“But you have said your home is down Katterskill,” said Isaac.

“Yes.” Jack, circumspect, wondered where this was leading. Were they going to lower his guard with talk and a few days travel—and then kill him?

“We’ll go together,” Keeps the Club said. “Our paths lie together for a time.”

***

Jack began to
travel with them, though he was not sure why. He felt detached. Sometimes, he had the sensation he was floating over his body, looking down at it.

For a couple of days they moved southeast following Schoharie Creek. On the third night, as Jack leaned against Hal in the chilly darkness, he opened his eyes to discover Isaac Blue Feather and Keeps the Club on their feet.

Slowly and quietly, they shouldered their packs. Then, without a sound, they evaporated into the night forest.

He sat, eyes open, wondering, but he didn’t do or say anything. It was Born in Fire who broke the silence. “They go to their families in these mountains.”

Jack nodded. He didn’t move or speak. He knew Indians, so he knew there was more coming.

“They don’t want to do what Butler said,” Born in Fire said.

“Which was?”

“Kill you. Take your scalp and receive twice the bounty.” Jack nodded. “Twice the bounty? Who would give so much?” “An officer from the great town at Manahattos.”

For the first time in days, Jack felt himself rouse.

Was this how the fatal English duel was to be revenged?

Did his overseas enemies have a friend in the high command here in the colonies? Then, another thought came, one even more dismaying, and far more probable than the first.

Armistead? Could he still be in the game? And if he was—what of Angelica, in that unprotected country farmhouse...

“Do you know the name of the man who made this promise?” Born in Fire’s eloquent shrug was visible, even through the darkness. “No,” he replied.

“Why did Butler ask you to do this?”

“Because you liked us, and he thought you would not be careful.” “It seems he got the wrong men.”

A lengthy pause followed. Born in Fire said, “At first, Keeps the Club thought there would be honor in killing a great warrior like you. I disagreed. If that officer of Manahattos were a real man, he would want to see his enemy’s
blood smoke upon his own hands.”

“Of course.”

Born in Fire concluded with a piety that would have done any gray-headed Iroquois elder proud. “I have come to believe that this taking of scalps for money, instead of for honor and medicine, is a great evil.”

It is truly strange, Jack thought, to hear old-fashioned Iroquois values so staunchly preached by a Dutchman!

“And if the others have gone, why have you stayed?” Jack asked. “Something calls me,” said Born in Fire. “I do not remember being here before, yet I know my way. That troubles me.”