Guns of Liberty (3 page)

As the wagon cleared the bridge Kate spied movement out of the corner of her eye. She glanced up and gasped to see a shadow shape detach from the edge of the roof. A rawboned, red-haired man in black trousers and boots, a linsey-woolsey shirt, and buckskin jacket came crashing down on the wagon bed.

Daniel McQueen missed the bench seat and toppled onto the chicken cages. He crushed one cage and nearly ruined two others. Kate switched the lines to one hand and grabbed for the blunderbuss beside her on the seat. Daniel saw her swing the barrel toward him and kicked out as she squeezed the trigger. The weapon peppered the air with its load of round shot and nails.

“By my oath!” Daniel shouted through a flurry of red feathers. “I’m here to help you, lass.”

Kate, already off balance, dropped the gun and lost her hold on the lines as the wheels struck another rut and jolted her off the seat. She landed atop her unexpected passenger. Cages cracked beneath them. Chickens scratched and pecked their way to freedom and beat their wings against the air. They rose in an ungainly semblance of flight and landed in the bed of the careening freight wagon.

Daniel rolled off the crates and landed against a keg of ale and another of rum. He had to brush Kate’s skirt from his face and in the process caught a momentary peek at her creamy white ankles and shapely calves before she righted herself into a more dignified position.

Daniel gallantly excused himself and scrambled over the remaining chickens in an effort to catch the lines. He missed by inches. One of the roosters stabbed its beak through the bars of the cage and nipped his belly as Daniel clambered toward the bench seat. He yelped and dove out of one harm’s way into another. The mares were racing full out and making good progress up the hill despite the wagon’s heavy load. But the lines were dragging along the ground beneath the singletree.

A man would have to be crazy to try for them.

Daniel scrambled over the siding, managed to balance on the crossbar, and with one hand on the wagon seat lowered himself to within reach of the lines. He’d have to take care to avoid the hooves of the mare closest to him. For a moment he thought he might lose his purchase.

Chips of rock and muddy debris spattered his arms and stung his cheeks like a swarm of hornets. He timed his effort and tried for the lines, missed, and almost lost his forearm to a flashing hoof. He tried again and caught the lines on the fly and leaped back up onto the seat, kicked the brake, and hauled back with all his might just as the wagon reached the top of the rise near Indian Head Rock. The wheels skidded in the dirt and the wagon shuddered and angled sideways.

Kate had only just regained her balance when the horses dug in their heels. She flew forward, and only by the grace of God and the strength of Daniel’s outstretched arm did she avoid a nasty tumble onto the skittish mares.

“What are you trying to do?” she exclaimed, straightening upright and trying to salvage a scrap of her dignity.

“To save your life,” Daniel replied.

“You could have fooled me, sir!”

The Scotsman ignored her insult and hopped down to the road, drawing his pistols from his waistband. He walked alongside the wagon.

“Hold the team,” he said.

“Why?”

“They might bolt again. You’ve raised them tenderhearted.”

Kate, speechless at such effrontery, simply stared. Before she could think of a suitable reply, the man was past her and standing at the rear of the wagon. Down below, the highwaymen emerged from the shadowy interior of the covered bridge and climbed the rise.

Daniel leveled the pistol in his right hand and fired. Kate shielded her eyes and watched with amazement as two of the brigands pitched from horseback—
two with one shot
!

The redheaded stranger turned toward her, smiled wanly, and shrugged. “I use a heavy load,” he explained. The last of the highwaymen, the tall, thin one who had ordered her to stand, waited by his fallen companions. It was obvious he wanted no part of a solitary attack. Nor was the man on the hill willing to come under the highwayman’s gun. It was a standoff.

Daniel ambled back to the wagon and climbed up alongside the young woman. He tucked the “Quakers” away and gestured toward the road ahead.

“He’ll not be bothering us again,” he said. Kate continued to stare at him. “Well, surely you’ll not refuse hospitality to such an orphan soul as myself, especially after all I have done.”

“Hospitality, is it? After you cost me two crates of chickens with your clumsiness?” She drew herself up as if to continue her caustic response. Then, with mercurial swiftness, her anger dissipated. The icy hardness in her blue eyes melted, and she flicked the lines and started the mares forward. She liked boldness in a man, and this one seemed as bold as they came.

“Well, my ‘homeless’ pup, do you have a name? For I am Kate Bufkin, and I’ll not be riding with a stranger.”

Daniel told her his name—the truth—and gave a shallow account of how he came to be along the Trenton Road—a lie. But there was music in his voice and laughter in his eyes, and though Kate believed little of his self-account, oddly, she didn’t care. The recent danger was quickly left behind and as quickly forgotten as the miles rolled effortlessly past.

“You impossibly stupid oafs,” Major Josiah Meeks exclaimed from astride his gray stallion. He removed his hood and shrugged the cape back off his shoulders as his single eye bore into the men sprawled in the dust of the Trenton Road.

“I was supposed to die first,” portly William Chaney said with his face in the dirt. Blood caked where the whip bit his shoulder.

“Black liar,” the slender one said, groaning and knuckling the grit from his bloodshot eyes. His neck burned like fire. Kate’s whip had left a scarlet welt below his jaw, a gift of pain for him to remember her by—and Black Tolbert most certainly would. He was a thin-skinned, vengeful young man, capable of bearing a grudge for a lifetime if that was how long it took to see things righted to his satisfaction.

“You’ve got no call to say that,” Chaney protested. “We agreed. I was to die first. You were supposed to wait until McQueen’s second shot. Wasn’t that so, Major Meeks?”

“Get out of the dirt!” Meeks said, his gaunt features livid with anger. “They’re gone.” He couldn’t remember who was supposed to “die” first, nor did he care.

For a tuppence he would have ridden off and left both of his associates where they lay. But Will Chaney, though dumb as a plow, was ruthless in a fight, and Black Tolbert, the whoremonger, was a keen and deadly marksman with rifle or pistol.

Meeks shaded his eye and studied the settling dust up by Indian Head Rock. Well—no matter, he decided. Despite its clumsy beginnings, his plan had achieved a successful outcome. Daniel McQueen was on his way to the Hound and Hare Inn.

T
HE HOUND AND HARE
Inn was set back about fifty feet off the Trenton Road and in the middle of a semicircular cobblestone drive that allowed a carriage or horseman easy passage back onto the tree-lined thoroughfare.

The inn itself was built of white oak planks and held together with nails forged from melted-down horseshoes. It stood two stories, with eight large windows across the front and back and four to either end. The structure ran ninety-five feet by twenty and offered four comfortable rooms upstairs for guests. Kate Bufkin and her brother, Loyal, each had a small bedroom off the tavern and winter kitchen that dominated the ground floor.

Daniel McQueen noted that part of the second story and the gable roof showed fire damage; the timbers were broken and some of the upstairs windows were blackened by fire. Kate noticed how he studied the place.

“By rights it should have burnt to the ground,” she said. “But a winter storm came up. It was a veritable deluge. I’ve never seen the like. Loyal, my brother, said it was a miracle. It put out the fire, though not until Mama collapsed with a lungful of smoke. She never recovered. Pneumonia took her, the last week in February.”

“I’m sorry,” Daniel said, and meant it. He had lost a parent and was on the verge of losing another if he couldn’t figure some way out of his predicament.

The building needed work; so much the better. He turned his attention to the courtyard in front of the inn. It was surrounded by a low wall built of native stone, and several tables had been set out in the sunlight. A massive keg was turned on its side and balanced on the wall. He caught the faint but distinct aroma of hard cider. A number of apple trees shaded the courtyard and dotted the grounds surrounding the inn, which faced in an easterly direction.

A couple of horses were tied to one of the rings set in the courtyard wall, and two men were seated at one of the tables. A pewter pitcher and two mugs stood upon the tabletop between them. Kate tensed on seeing the pair.

A third man, who bore some resemblance to Kate, waved as she drove the freight wagon into the drive and swung past the courtyard and around the north side of the inn, where a barn had been erected back in the trees.

“We can unload through the back door,” Kate said.

“We?” Daniel’s eyebrows arched.

“If you’re going to stay awhile, you’ll have to earn your keep.”

“Now, lass, I never said I was staying.”

“You will,” Kate replied, eyes twinkling. “You told me on the way here you were in hopes of finding employment. Maybe we can use you. Besides, you’ve yet to taste one of my apple pies.”

This
is
turning out to be easier than I had hoped, Daniel thought as he rounded the wagon to help Kate. She climbed down without his assistance. She was a headstrong lass. But why was she in a hurry to secure the services of a man she hardly knew? Daniel began to have misgivings about all this. He had a feeling he had stepped into trouble. A few moments later, and he knew it for a fact.

A big, strapping, corn-fed young man of nineteen rounded the corner of the inn. He stood a head taller than Daniel and looked to carry an extra thirty pounds, much of it on his heavily muscled chest and shoulders. His brown hair was already thinning from his broad expanse of forehead, where the skin was sunburned and peeling. His arms swung loosely at his side. He wore nut brown pants tucked into his black boots and a coarsely woven cotton shirt and brown coat. His tricorn hat was faded and worn from sunlight and rain.

“Afternoon, Miss Kate, I’ve been waiting for you.”

“And draining my stock of hard cider or I miss my guess, Henk Schraner. So what brings you from farm and field?”

“Father’s out front with poor Loyal,” Henk said. “My brothers are back. They came in last night from their yondering. Now they can help with the farm and I can help you, like I said …” As Henk spoke he eyed the rough-looking newcomer who had accompanied Kate Bufkin on the wagon. Henk made no attempt to hide his jealousy.

“There’s many a robber on the road these days,” he added.

“Aye, and here’s one who did for me when I was accosted at Indian Rock by three highwaymen. Killed two of the brigands, he did.”

“Oh?” Henk’s eyes widened, yet still he was suspicious. He resented this stranger all the more. “Then I’ll offer you my hand,” the farmer’s son said. He outstretched a work-hardened hand.

Daniel had seen country hams smaller than the palm outstretched to him. He clasped Henk’s hand. Instantly the fingers tightened in a bone-crushing grip. Henk smiled. Daniel smiled. Their knuckles turned red, then white with loss of blood. Daniel might have had to yield, for the youth possessed uncommon strength. It was Kate, though, who unwittingly ended the contest.

“I’ve hired Daniel McQueen to help Loyal and me repair the upstairs rooms.”

“What?” Henk turned to her, momentarily losing his concentration.

Daniel jerked his hand free and began flexing the abused appendage. At the same time he, too, swung around to face Kate Bufkin. By heaven, this lass offered one surprise after another. A hireling now, and in a pretty girl’s employ. Daniel would have been flattered; however, he had the distinct impression he was being used to block Henk’s ardent attempt to remain at the inn. The hulking youth was obviously smitten.

Henk’s brows furrowed into a frown that seemed to crease his forehead all the way up to his receding scalp line. “Hired?” he repeated the word as if mulling over its true meaning. Then he nodded, accepting what he had heard. Looking at Daniel, he said, “How long do you plan on staying?” Suppressed rage made the words seem leaden and flat as he spoke them.

“As long as it takes,” Daniel replied, refusing to be cowed or bullied into abandoning his newly gained position of Hound and Hare’s jack-of-all-trades. Daniel was ashamed of his duplicity, but he had to remember that, at least for now, there seemed no other way to save his own father’s life.

“‘As long as it takes,’ say you. We’ll see.” Henk spun on his mud-caked heels and walked around the house. A round-bellied, balding man in his mid-forties appeared at the corner of the tavern. He waved to Kate, then stepped aside as Henk barreled past him. The older man seemed perplexed and hurried after the younger man, who lost no time in mounting his horse and galloping off down the Trenton Road.

“Papa Schraner … Perhaps he will talk sense and reason to his son.”

“I warrant he’ll need to be a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier,” Daniel observed dryly. “And speaking of talking sense, you—” His gray eyes narrowed. Kate would hear none of his protest. She nudged a precipitously balanced barrel of nails. The load toppled from the wagon into Daniel’s hastily outstretched arms.

Kate Bufkin had put him to work.

“L
ET US PRAY,” LOYAL
Bufkin began. He was seated at one end of a long board table crowded with food. There was a platter of round bread, another of cheese, and a wooden tray of roasted chickens—those that had been injured in the melee earlier in the day. The chickens were bordered on one side by a platter of boiled potatoes and on the other by a fire-blackened, deep pan of apple pan dowdy sweetened with molasses, its juices bubbling up through the broken crust.

“Lord, we ask this blessing upon our home and take this food to the nourishment of our bodies. We give Thee thanks and praise” Loyal glanced up, his gaze darting from Daniel on his left to Kate on his right. “What was that?”