The Silver Bullet (20 page)

Artistic grandeur was not needed to show Schuyler the great dangers he faced. Burgoyne’s forces were tremendous on their own, a full threat to Ticonderoga and Albany behind her. But have Howe come north and clearly the Revolution was lost, and not just in Schuyler’s home state. Control of the Hudson River would split the entire country in two, since there was no way of communicating north to south without crossing the river. With the sea blockade against Massachusetts growing in effectiveness, the great cause of Freedom would wither and die.

“
We have only a few weeks at most to strengthen the northern defenses and prevent disaster,” said Schuyler while he studied the map with Jake. “But even if I can hold off Burgoyne, Howe will strike me from behind. I can’t fight both armies. Albany will have to be abandoned.”

The general’s forecast, dire as it was, reflected the unfortunate strategic realities of his position. Even if Washington decided to leave Philadelphia vulnerable and undertook an all-out effort to engage Howe in the Hudson Highlands, he was unlikely to stop him.

“
We have to intercept the messenger,” said Jake.

“
Absolutely,” the general grunted. “There was a flash in his eyes. Undoubtedly he was thinking of the same thing that had just occurred to Jake.

“
Perhaps we shouldn’t stop him completely,” said the general. “If his message were merely changed and then delivered, it might serve us better. If no answer arrives, Howe may send north for one or simply wait. But if Burgoyne told him, ‘Fine, go where you want,’ we’d be much better off. He’d pack his troops off for somewhere else.”

“
Too bad we can’t send him back to England,” said Jake, well aware that freeing Howe from a campaign up the Hudson would mean other complications.

“
You have ten days to accomplish the mission – change the message or kill him if you can’t. After that I will have to prepare for a withdrawal from Albany.”

Jake nodded as the general rose from his desk and walked to the door, where he called to one of his aides. “Alert Captain Kalman’s company that they’ll be riding south in the morning. Kalman is one of my best men,” he told Jake. “His troops will be more than adequate escort.”

“
Begging your pardon, sir, but a company of soldiers will draw too much attention. I’m best off on my own.”

“
I’m confident of your abilities, Jake, but I’m reluctant to send you by yourself. It’s too dangerous.”

The general’s concern for his welfare – as if he were sending him into the stormy night without an overcoat – was touching. Their short interview had done much to reverse the impression Jake had received when he’d called on Schuyler with his father on business before the war. It was almost as if Schuyler’s experiences since then had ennobled him somehow.

Or maybe they were both just tired.

“
I merely have to get into his things while he’s sleeping. Sneaking into Burgoyne’s ball under Carleton’s nose was much more difficult.”

“
I wouldn’t have approved that, either.”

Jake smiled and shrugged. “If things go wrong, I can just shoot the bastard. I’ll be behind our own lines, after all. It shouldn’t be too hard enlisting help if I need it.”

Besides, Jake knew one portly patriot who would be only too happy to help – once certain facts were explained to him in a logical, if forceful, manner.

It took considerably more persuasion, but Schuyler finally gave his consent for him to proceed alone. Being a general, however, he could not do so with a mere nod of his head. A grand and windy speech was called for, lauding Jake’s sense of patriotism and duty, complimenting his bravery, inciting his courage. It was almost too much to bear.

“
Do this as a lover of Freedom,” Schuyler said as he hit his stride at the end. “Do this for your family and your country. You have the fate of our freedom in your hands.”

“
General, you will win the governor’s race this year in a hare’s trot with a speech such as that,” said Jake.

Jake was not the only agent busy that evening. The man who had tracked him from Canada was in fact lurking but a few hundred yards away in the shadows of the fort, contemplating his next move.

After killing Leal, Manley had paddled his canoe across the lake, where he found the road heading south. It took no great powers of deduction to realize Jake must have taken that path, nor was it very difficult for Manley to persuade the first traveler he came upon to give up his horse. The poor man thought the mere crown he offered in exchange much too cheap, but he gladly settled for less when Manley displayed his pistol. The traveler got down quickly, handed him the reins, and then made a dash for the woods.

He got three steps away before Manley’s bullets took him in the back.

Once mounted, the British secret agent pushed the horse down the trail. But when the road forked, he went nearly a mile down the wrong path before realizing his mistake. Manley lost time inquiring about the Bull’s Head; when he finally arrived he was too late to do anything but observe the throng escorting Jake to prison.

He followed the mob as it carried Jake to justice. While part of him admired the poetic justice inherent in their mistake, Manley felt cheated at losing such a formidable quarry and resolved to cheat the hangman of his prize. Disguised as a citizen from the nearby town, he entered the fort on a flimsy pretense and was headed in the direction of Jake’s jail cell when the American made his escape. The British major was thus privy to the discovery of Jake’s true identity. He left the fort almost in a state of relief.

As Herstraw had intimated, the owner of the Bull’s Head was a clandestine Tory. He did not understand the meaning of the ruby-hilted knife that Manley flicked into the table in front of him, but it certainly got his attention.

“
We will need someone to gather information from the fort on the prisoner they took away,” Manley said. “And then I need some men to help me ambush him.”

“
You’re breaking him out?”

Manley smiled. “Something like that.”

“
My brother’s daughter works as one of the cook’s servants.”

“
Put her to work, then. I have no doubt he’ll leave early in the morning; I want to know by what route.”

“
He’ll leave?”

Manley didn’t bother to enlighten the keeper. He considered all colonials, even Loyalists, little more than primitive simpletons.

“
Get me some Madeira,” he said. “And then some dinner. There’s much to be done tonight.”

The innkeeper didn’t like being summarily ordered about by anyone, even a disguised British officer. He had fought in the French and Indian War, and was still in reasonably good shape. The fellow opposite him, with his odd-featured face and paper-thin physique, might be exceedingly tall but could not have matched his own weight.

But even as the first syllable of protest emerged from the keeper’s mouth, he realized he had misjudged his guest. Manley’s arm, acting against the table as a fulcrum, clamped tight on his neck and pulled him forward, holding him out of his chair.

“
Killing rebels makes me thirsty,” said Manley. “Bring me a drink now, before your own allegiance comes into question.”

When he was released, the innkeeper ran for the pipe of Madeira he’d been saving for his daughter’s wedding.

-Chapter Seventeen–

Wherein, Jake’s pursuit of Burgoyne’s messenger is sidetracked by diversions on Lake George
.

S
obered by the
possibility that Albany would be abandoned — though Jake hoped the general’s statement was mere rhetoric like the more flowery portions of his speech, designed to bolster his agent’s resolve – the lieutenant colonel spent a fitful few hours in a cramped camp cot, dreaming of Sarah and what would happen to her family if they were forced to run for their lives. While he slept, a new message for Howe was forged and reforged, the counterfeiter trying to get the slants and loops of Gentleman Johnny’s hand right. Finally it was decided to just write the brief message in an ordinary hand, as if a secretary had done it, and copy Burgoyne’s signature as a countersign at the bottom. Even so, it took several attempts before the message could pass as genuine.

The silver bullet was more easily prepared was more easily prepared – a round ball with a three-quarter-inch diameter had been taken from a Tory traitor some months before; polished, it was ready to be pressed into service by the other side.

Polished, or covered with a bit of grease? Darkened, it would be difficult to tell the difference between it and a bullet for a Brown Bess, at least without picking it up.

Had the spy done that? There was no way of Knowing until Jake caught up with him; he would have to be supplied with grease and deal with the problem if it presented itself.

The silver ball, with an almost imperceptibly thin seam around its equator, was deposited into a special pocket stitched into the lieutenant colonel’s waistband. This waistband was part of a new suit of clothes General Schuyler provided. The plain black britches and brown coat were hardly the cutting edge in fashion, but they were versatile and unassuming. He even managed to find a new tricornered hat with an eagle-feathered cockade, so the spy wasn’t completely bereft of dash.

Considerably more important were the three pistols said to have been manufactured some years before by a disciple of the noted Boston gunsmith John Kim. They were not much different from the standard officer’s pistol perfected by the esteemed Barnett of London, whose work Jake had had occasion to appreciate in the past. No more than nineteen separate pieces accounted for each, if one took the lock mechanism as one. Jake could quickly strip them for inspection and cleaning, which he did upon receiving them. Each came with its own holster, so he could mount them on the horse as he pleased.

The half-breed’s elk-boned knife and his own pocketknife were also returned by the militia, which had confiscated them upon his arrest. But his Segallas was missing.

The militia lieutenant swore that no member of his unit would have dared to steal the weapon; all were caught up in patriotism, he said, and would not have given the slightest thought to personal profit.

If what he said was correct, then Jake believed he had some hope of having the pistol returned to him, since he knew one man who would not think his patriotism conflicted with profit. In fact, Jake had several scores to settle with the good squire van Clynne.

The Dutchman was an odd sort of character, businessman enough to have shown him north for an exorbitant fee, patriot enough to turn him in once he thought Jake might truly do some harm. The American spy might even be tempted to applaud the Dutchman, on the grounds that he had acted according to what he thought was the good of the Cause.

Such temptation would have been easily resisted. For the price of a laugh and a strong coffee at breakfast, Jake managed to convince Captain Andrews to give him the letter accusing him. Reading it renewed his harsher opinions quite readily.

“
No hard feelings now,” said Andrews, spooning a mountain of eggs into his mouth. “You know I wouldn’t have actually had you hung.”

“
No hard feelings at all,” said Jake, slapping his ersatz friend on the back so hard that the captain feel to the floor. “Of course you wouldn’t have.”

He reached down to help the good captain up. He helped him so well that the captain’s momentum carried him across the room to the door, which he would have exited, had it been open.

“
An officer should not allow prisoners to be beaten, no matter their allegiance,” said Jake as he stepped over the captain’s supine body and went to find his horse.

Schuyler had not only left orders for Jake to be supplied with the finest horse in the fort; he’d sent word to the small schooner that had taken him north on Lake George to await Jake’s command. This brought with it an unexpected development – Betsy Schuyler was planning to travel from the fort to the family home at Saratoga via the same vessel.

Though confident he would be able to overtake the travelers as they rode at their leisurely pace down the Post Road to Rhinebeck, Jake was reluctant to delay his start for even a few minutes. Though she had saved his life – or at least helped him escape further imprisonment – the agent bristled when the fort’s liaison officer told him that she would accompany him to the boat. But his fears about feminine delays were unfounded; she was already waiting for him at the fort entrance, sitting on a horse and flanked by two black militiamen.

“
This is a pleasant surprise,” said Jake. “I had not expected to enjoy such company so early in the morning.”

“
Your tongue is as handsome as your face,” replied Betsy smartly, the slight touch of sarcasm completely disarmed by her smile. “Let us see if you horse is as good as father promised.”

Jake took up the challenge and they began racing toward the boat. Though the others were not riding weak beasts, his proved by far the fastest; Jake reached the boat slip well ahead of them. There he found a premonition of complications to come.

The sloop that had carried General Schuyler north was gone; in its place was a smaller flat-bottomed craft, rigged with a single, undersized sail. The boats master explained that the schooner had been called to the southern shore of the lake yesterday on another mission. The ship had run into difficulty overnight because of the storm, which had been more violent here than at Ticonderoga. He, however, would be honored to take its place.