Guns of Liberty (19 page)

Daniel’s cheeks reddened at the compliment. How quickly he had confided in the colonel before he had a chance to think or caution himself.
As for my part
, Daniel thought,
I’m just glad to be aboard, whatever happens
.

“What are your plans, my young friend?”

“I’ll return to the Hound and Hare. There is a woman there to whom I owe the truth.”

“I see,” Washington replied, bemused. Even revolutions had to stand aside for love.

“Don’t take the Trenton Road, sir,” Daniel said. “Whatever else happens.”

“I’m not the commander-in-chief yet.”

“You will be. We both know it.”

“Perhaps,” the Virginian conceded. “But if it is so, then I must choose the quickest route to my troops.”

“No matter the risk?”

“We are both at risk, my young friend. Each of us travels a perilous road.”

“Then—until our paths cross again,” Daniel said, starting back down the pier.

Washington was caught off guard by Daniel’s abrupt departure. He remained at the end of the dock as Daniel hurried past broken barrels and fishnets and an overturned johnny boat whose hull needed repair.

“What will you do?” Washington called to the departing figure. He felt a kinship for the younger man. Daniel’s responsibilities, though far more personal than Washington’s, were no less weighty.

Daniel whirled around, and his somber gray cape fluttered about him. “What needs to be done. The same as you, sir,” he called out, then resumed his course, retracing his steps back to Woodbine’s house and the grove of trees where he’d tethered the black mare.

A
N HOUR AFTER SUNDOWN,
Padraich O’Flynn settled his chunky frame into the sumptuously cushioned chair Nathaniel Woodbine provided for the guests who came to his study. O’Flynn, dressed in the uniform of the New York Militia for his visit, had entered the house by the front door and had even been introduced to William Rutledge—although the good doctor, being “in his cups,” would no doubt forget the corporal’s name upon sobering up. At Woodbine’s insistence, Rutledge had been led upstairs to a guest room to sleep it off.

The merchant entered the study and placed himself behind his desk. He was dwarfed by the walnut-topped desk and the shelves of leather-bound books behind him. Upon those hallowed shelves the merchant kept such treasures as Percy’s
Reliques of Ancient English Poetry,
Blackstone’s
Commentaries on the Laws of England
, Walpole’s
The Castle of Otranto,
and the works of Thomas Gray and Jonathan Swift. He folded his hands and listened as O’Flynn recounted the events of the past ten days and what Meeks intended for the future.

Woodbine was unable to conceal his distress as O’Flynn recounted how, with Josiah Meeks, he had found the corpse of Al Dees caught in the roots of a willow along the banks of Roemer’s Creek. Mose Wiley was nowhere to be seen and more than likely had been washed away in the flooding waters.

Meeks had buried Dees and returned to Springtown. It was there he learned of Daniel McQueen’s near capture upon returning from a mysterious night ride. It was no great leap of the imagination to see that Daniel was responsible for the deaths of Wiley and Dees. How had this happened? What had caused him to betray Meeks?

The only good thing to come out of all this was that Daniel stood accused of Henk’s murder. As long as the good citizens of Springtown were looking for Daniel, they wouldn’t be searching out Henk’s real killer.

But where was Daniel? No one seemed to know. As long as he was free he was as dangerous as a loose cannon on the deck of a ship.

After listening to the Irishman’s story Woodbine allowed O’Flynn a brandy. The Irishman swirled the amber-brown contents beneath his nose, then gulped the drink while Woodbine looked on in distaste. Brandy was to be savored, like the pleasures of a woman. But Woodbine returned his attention to the business of war.

“More men have arrived from New York,” Woodbine told him. “You will take them with you to rejoin Major Meeks.”

O’Flynn grimaced. “Beggin’ your leave, Mr. Woodbine. But ain’t there another who could go between Meeks and yourself? That Englishman is a haughty bastard and I’ve no liking for him.”

“Our English major will have little time for games. Indeed, the news you bring to him will please him greatly and place him in our debt.”

“Then you’ve learned where the rebels have stored their guns?” the Irishman leaned forward in anticipation.

“From Rutledge himself, the drunken, trusting fool.” Woodbine rubbed his hands together. “We’ll have the guns and Washington, too. It will be a blow these treasonous rebels will never recover from.”

Glass shattered in the foyer outside the study. The noise brought both men to their feet. Padraich O’Flynn filled his hand with a pistol from his coat pocket.

Woodbine paled as he rounded his desk and led the way to the door. O’Flynn’s ruddy cheeks seemed to quiver as the muscles along his jaw tensed, relaxed, then tensed again.

“Rutledge?” he whispered to Woodbine.

The merchant merely wagged his head no and pointed toward the ceiling. He had personally escorted the physician and his son to one of the guest rooms upstairs. Then who was this intruder, and how much had he overheard?

Woodbine reached the door, quickly pulled it open, and darted into the foyer. The diminutive merchant did not lack for courage, O’Flynn thought to himself as he maneuvered past his employer.

A three-legged mahogany table lay on its side. Just beyond it were scattered the pieces of what had once been a bowl of Stiegel crystal that the “Baron” himself, Heinrich Stiegel, had engraved with miniature parrots.

Woodbine saw that the front door was shut and bolted from within. That meant the culprit was still in the house. He stared at the wreckage of his beautiful bowl with fists clenched, and in a soft, murderous voice said, “All right. Come out, damn you.”

A blur of motion caught his attention near the stairs. O’Flynn snapped up his pistol but held his fire as a charcoal gray cat leaped down from beneath the banister and landed near the shattered glassware.

Woodbine and O’Flynn sighed in relief.

“Damn cat belongs to my cook,” Woodbine said. “It’s a good ratter but not. worth the price of that bowl.” He glared at the feline, who, impervious to the merchant’s dislike, padded off to explore the sitting room across the foyer.

“At least it can’t tell anyone what it overhears in its prowling,” O’Flynn said. “Though I knew a man in Dublin who I’m told could converse with cows and hogs and even a goose or two—depending upon how much whiskey he had imbibed.”

Woodbine returned to the study and O’Flynn came right along behind the merchant. His prattle never slackened as the door to the study swung shut.

Only then did another shadow detach itself from the stairway and take itself, one labored step at a time, up to the second floor. For there had been two prowlers afoot in Woodbine’s townhouse: a gray tomcat and a frightened young boy who had crept from bed and made his way to the kitchen in search of an extra shortbread cookie.

Sexton Rutledge reached the upstairs hallway and, fearful of knocking anything else over, forced himself to walk to the guest room where his father lay asleep. He reached the door. It opened at a touch. He slipped inside and hurried to the sleigh bed where his father, William Rutledge, lay snoring. Sexton grabbed the sleeping man by the shoulders and shook him. The doctor mumbled something unintelligible.

“Father, wake up. Please, Father,” the boy said fearfully. “Woodbine’s a loyalist. A loyalist! Father!”

He gave the unconscious man a sound shake but could not rouse the physician from his stupor. Woodbine had capitalized on the man’s weakness, plied him with liquor, and then cajoled the secrets from him. Sexton hadn’t seen his father like this in a long time, but he remembered all too well he was powerless to wake the man. There was nothing he could do save wait. Wait. The boy crawled into bed alongside his father.

Nathaniel Woodbine thought he was so very clever.

“Well,” Sexton whispered to himself, “we shall see about that. Wait until morning, after Father and Colonel Washington hear my story.”

That same evening, many miles from Philadelphia, the Hound and Hare Inn was the scene of a much more private and personal debate. Kate Bufkin sat across from her brother, a chess board between them. But Kate’s mind was hardly on the game. Her thoughts kept drifting from chess strategy to a handsome Highland rogue with flashing eyes and flaming red hair, whose strategy she couldn’t even begin to guess at. Whatever the reasons for his actions, she loved this bold adventurer—and so be it.

“Your move.” Loyal Bufkin wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt. He took another bite of his pork sandwich and watched his sister for some indication that she had returned her attention to the game.

Kate’s hand drifted above the board, then committed her queen. The young woman’s golden hair looked darker by lantern light than it really was, and when she leaned forward, her unbound tresses spilled forward to conceal her features.

“I’ll take your queen,” Loyal cautioned, his mouth full. He folded his forearms on the table to prop himself over the chess board, where he loomed like some Greek god above the earthbound struggles of his pawns. Kate retracted her move and made another.

“You’ll take my queen,” Loyal commented in the same tone of voice.
My God, she has blundered into victory
, he thought, and then sighed with relief as she absentmindedly took back her threatening knight. She had barely heard him. She chose another piece at random and completed her move.

“You can’t do that!” Loyal protested.

“Why not, for heaven’s sake?”

“Because that is my bishop.”

“Oh.” She returned the black bishop to its former position. She pushed away from the table and went to the hearth. Grabbing an iron poker, she reached into the flames and adjusted one of the logs.

It was a small but cheerful blaze, just enough to take the edge off the night, which in mid June didn’t take much. Despite the warmth which grew uncomfortable the longer she remained by the fire, Kate stood, transfixed by the dancing flames.

“Kate …” Loyal called softly. He glanced down at the chess board and saw he was winning; it was one of the few times. He hated to leave the game now. Maybe she’d come back. He repositioned the slab of pork between the two crusty halves of bread. “Kate …” He looked around the empty inn. The Schraners had spread the word of how Kate had helped Daniel escape from Springtown. Loyalties ran deep. The Schraner family had settled this part of Pennsylvania, and they had helped other families who had moved into the area, built their farms, and at last come together to form a town with real churches and a school.

Kate Bufkin, on the other hand, was a relative newcomer, and though well liked, she could not command the same sympathies as Papa Schraner.

There was little traffic on the Trenton Road, none of which turned into the Hound and Hare for lodging. She suspected the eldest Schraner’s influence behind this as well. Eben and Barnabas had come by yesterday and all but admitted this was the case and openly apologized. They told her their father wouldn’t bring charges against her but was determined to punish her for helping “Henk’s murderer” to escape. Barnabas had doubts about Daniel’s guilt, and Eben reflected his older brother’s influence. But the brothers’ sympathy was all she could expect.

“Kate … come and finish the game,” Loyal said. “What else is there to do?” His voice sounded hollow and rather lost in the empty room. How many times had he wiped the tables or checked the wicks in the whale-oil lamps or dusted the bottles and jugs and tankards behind the walnut bar? He’d lost count. And what was the point—to provide service for their phantom guests?

“What else?” Kate repeated, facing her brother. She crossed the room and stood at his side. “I don’t know. Except I shall go mad waiting.”

“He’s fine, Kate. Daniel’s safe wherever he is. I’m sure of it. You just have to believe, is all.”

Kate’s smile was forced, but at least she tried, and she patted her brother’s arm, then hugged him. And to his dismay walked away again after threatening his king with her queen. “I left the butter churn out back near the root cellar; I better carry it down where it is cool.”

“Want me to go?”

“No. You stay here and try to beat me,” she teased.

“I should never have taught you this game,” Loyal muttered. Leaning forward on his elbows, he pondered his next move. No game was ever like another. That was the excitement. There was always a surprise, an unseen development or a dilemma to be confronted.

Poring over the checkered field of play with its arrangement of pieces all carved by his hand, Loyal did not hear the rear door close. Nor did he notice the front door open.

Kate was halfway to the root cellar when out of the darkness of night she heard the barn door bang against the outside of the building. The noise alerted her. She had barred the door shut that morning after carrying a cartload of corn out of the bins to the hogs. At the gentle pressure of a summer’s breeze the door swung to and fro on its hinges, and the empty doorway was a yawning patch of darkness that suddenly blossomed with pale amber light as someone within struck tinder and lit a lantern.

Kate gasped, and broke into a run. It was him! It had to be! She forgot everything else. Emotion ruled her now. She lifted the hem of her dress to quicken her pace and hurried toward the barn. The lamplit doorway was a beacon to her. She was furious at him for his absence and overjoyed he had returned. Daniel had left her with a heart full of questions. It was time to find out the truth of this man whom she had come to love. Yes, it was time for the truth.

She crossed the yard, darted through the doorway, and spied a shadowy figure standing just inside the near stall.

“Daniel McQueen! It’s high time you show yourself. I was worried to death not knowing whether or not I’d see you alive …” Kate stopped. The blood in her veins turned to ice.

Josiah Meeks bowed to her, doffing his hat. His single eye glittered, and his lips curled back in a feral smile as he left his horse and advanced on her, all gangly and dangerous.