Guns of Liberty (7 page)

“By God, Loyal, you’ve a gift for this,” said the merchant.

Loyal beamed with pride and nodded his thanks. A simple man, he trusted openly. It pleased him that others found merit in the work of his hands.

Kate and Dan also stepped outside.

“You’re welcome any time, Colonel Woodbine. You’ve been good to us, as good as one to his own kin. Isn’t that right, Kate?” Loyal said in his rasping voice.

“Like a kind uncle,” Kate replied.

Nathaniel Woodbine’s eyebrows arched, but he said nothing. He donned his tricorn hat with a flourish and motioned to his men, who quickly drained their tankards and headed out of the courtyard. One of the dragoons, a short, solid man older than Daniel by a decade, paused to scrutinize the Highlander.

Daniel noted the man’s attention and returned his stare until the man looked away.

“Corporal, will you join us?” Woodbine said as he made his way toward the phaeton. The militia men mounted their horses.

Daniel glanced down and spied the flash of silver in Kate’s hands.

“Handsome work, that. Worth a good deal,” he commented dryly.

Kate waved as the phaeton rolled past and then looked down at Woodbine’s gift. “Perhaps too much,” she mused aloud worriedly.

Nathaniel Woodbine settled back in the padded leather seat of his carriage, guided the geldings from the drive onto the Trenton Road, and pointed the animals toward Philadelphia.

“A kind ‘uncle,’ is it?” he muttered to himself, and snorted in contempt for the word and all it implied. Kate Bufkin was a blossom waiting to be picked. “We shall see about that.”

B
Y THE TWENTIETH OF
May, Daniel had repaired all the pewterware and fashioned a wrought-iron latticework arch that he fit over the entrance to the courtyard. Now the tavern’s patrons would pass beneath black iron vines that intertwined upward from either side and became a hound and hare caught in a tableau of the hunt.

When Daniel had finished, he, Kate, and Loyal stood out in the drive. Kate produced a bottle of the most potent brandy Daniel had ever lifted to his lips. They all drank a toast to Daniel’s handiwork. Daniel folded his arms across his chest and beamed with pride and satisfaction. It was indeed quite good. Not perfect, to be sure. He had made a twist here and there in the wrong place and the rabbit was not quite the right proportion in relation to the hound, but by and large, his work was worthy of the man who had been his teacher, Brian McQueen. Daniel gulped his brandy and let the burning liquid chase away the pain of his predicament.

“Tonight I’ll fix you anything, Daniel McQueen. A meal the like of you’ve never tasted,” Kate said.

“There’s no need.”

“It was a grand day when you rode to my sister’s rescue on the Trenton Road,” Loyal exclaimed, and patted the craftsman on the shoulder.

“Rode … I more or less leaped.” Daniel laughed, eager to change the subject. “I’ll saddle one of the mares and get the candles. Sister Hope ought to be done with them by now.”

“Sister Agnes keeps the bees, and it is she who makes the candles. It is a source of great pride to her,” Kate corrected. “But you should rest now. You’ve spent many an hour before the forge.”

“The ride will do me good.” Daniel seemed eager to go.

“Perhaps I should show you the way,” Kate suggested timidly.

“No!” Daniel snapped, with more force than he had intended. “What I mean is … I know the way—you told me earlier, remember?”

Kate lowered her gaze and blushed. Daniel, who would have liked nothing better than to be alone with her, silently cursed his blundering manner. What was she doing to him? With any other woman he’d know exactly what to say and do, but she had turned him into an oaf, clumsy in word and deed.

“Take whichever horse suits you,” Kate told him. Her wounded tone made Daniel feel small inside. She turned from him and headed for the tavern door.

“My sister’s a proud one,” Loyal said. “It isn’t often she lets a person close to her.” He glanced at Daniel, who could not meet his stare. “I do believe that’s the only thing Kate fears. Poor girl.” He smacked his lips after downing his brandy.

“What do you fear, Mr. McQueen?” Loyal added.

Now Daniel looked at him. There was more to Kate’s half-mad brother than the Scotsman had initially perceived. Loyal laughed softly as if reading Daniel’s thoughts and then stepped beneath the wrought-iron arch. He lifted his eyes to the animal figures rendered by the artisan.

“Hounds and hares,” Loyal noted coldly. “The world is reduced to the chase. But which of us is the hound?” His voice grew distant, thoughtful, and then he faced Daniel again. “And which the hare?”

An hour’s easy ride from the tavern, Daniel walked his bay the last few yards up a hill ringed by white oaks to where the ashes of a campfire still curled smoke and two men awaited him.

Major Josiah Meeks stretched his gaunt frame and stepped around the remains of the campfire. His brown-brimmed hat and eyepatch gave him the appearance of a swashbuckling rogue. He puffed on his clay pipe and hooked his thumbs in the broad belt circling his waist.

Black Tolbert stood a few paces off to the left. He held a pistol at the ready, cocked and primed and set to bring down the first stranger who entered the clearing. He recognized this incoming rider and held his fire. Still, he was slow to lower his gun. There was no love lost between Daniel McQueen and Black Tolbert.

Daniel dropped a hand to one of the “Quakers” tucked in his belt. Meeks defused the situation by stepping between the two antagonists. The major’s brown cloak flapped with each long-legged stride.

“We waited all morning, Danny boy,” the major said.

“You said to meet on the tenth day after I arrived at the inn. You didn’t say what time of day.”

“And you enjoyed keeping us out here while you played ‘bushy park’ with a tavern wench.” Tolbert slapped his neck, crushing a nettlesome insect. He pulled a leather flask from his pocket, took a couple of swallows of rum, and returned the flask to his forest-green coat.

The veins in Tolbert’s cheeks were like crimson lines drawn upon a war map. In another few years of self-abuse he’d be a dissolute wreck, but today he was an unbalanced and dangerous adversary.

Daniel didn’t care a whit. “Consider these discomforts just so much practice for your time in hell.”

Black Tolbert grew livid and tried to step around Meeks, who only just managed to restrain his impetuous henchman.

“I’ve heard enough from both of you,” the major complained.

Tolbert turned on him and his anger slowly subsided beneath the officer’s withering one-eyed stare.

“You hold the purse strings,” Tolbert grumbled. “But I’ll brook no more of McQueen’s insults.” The assassin halfheartedly lowered his weapon, uncocked it, and tucked the gun in his waistband.

Meeks turned his attention to the man on horseback. War was a dark and bloody business. Sometimes it required the skills of such men as Black Tolbert. Josiah Meeks was a private, cynical man who could foresee in the coming conflict a chance for his own advancement and the acquisition of wealth and property. Tolbert would help him on his way.

“Danny boy, I find your attitude disturbing at best.”

“My attitude? I’m here, yes? And I’ve worked my way into the confidence of those who run the Hound and Hare, as you wished.” Daniel paused in his litany of accomplishments, and his eyes narrowed, his expression shrewd. “How did you know Washington would be coming there?”

“A little bird told me.” Meeks dismissed the impertinent inquiry. “Now, are you certain you can extend your stay? The Continental Congress has yet to name a commander-in-chief. There are other names being discussed. Ward, for one. Even that disreputable traitor, Hancock. If one of them is chosen we shall adapt our plans. Will Chaney has already ingratiated himself to one of Hancock’s servants.”

“Then you may not need me, after all,” Daniel said, a note of relief in his voice. Maybe he could extricate himself from this situation.
And leave other innocent men to die?
His thoughts became gloomy again.

“These rebels would be fools not to choose the Virginian. Colonel Washington is their most capable man.” Meeks sauntered back toward the campfire, retrieved a small, barrel-like container called a pin, and poured a measure of hard cider into a silver cup. The cup was a keepsake that seemed to hold special importance for the Englishman, for he had carried it among his belongings for as long as Daniel had known him. “Colonel Washington must die—whoever else the rabble chooses. He is too dangerous. Sooner or later, the continentals would turn to him.” Meeks smiled to think of it. What a blow to this burgeoning insurrection, to lose their best man in a single strike. It might even take the heart out of the revolution and send these seditious farmers scurrying back to their fields.

“If that’s what you think, then you know nothing of us. Braddock’s Road taught you nothing at all,” Daniel said.

Back in 1755, General Edward Braddock had led a force into the Ohio country, to punish the French and the Ottawa. The British troops had met with a crushing defeat and the only thing that kept their long retreat from becoming a bloody rout were the colonials, led by Braddock’s aide, young George Washington, who stood and fought the tenacious Indians to a standstill. A big-boned, husky lad of thirteen by the name of Daniel McQueen had fought alongside many a brave man and learned the truth of war.

“Us?” Meeks didn’t like the sound of the word. “Have ‘you’ become an ‘us’?”

“I warrant it’s that yellow-haired girl,” Black Tolbert interjected, drawing close. It was his turn to make Daniel squirm. He could sense the man on horseback stiffen. “Maybe I ought to take up at the tavern, Major Meeks,” Tolbert purred. “She gives me any trouble, and I got a sword between my legs that’d keep the wench in her place.”

Daniel’s foot shot out and clipped the grinning brigand just below the chin. Black Tolbert’s head snapped back and his eyes rolled up and showed nothing but white as he toppled over on his backside. He landed in the dirt with a muffled thud.

Meeks sighed, crossed over, and knelt by the unconscious man. He checked to see if Tolbert was still breathing. Reassured, he stood and faced Daniel.

“I do not need this trouble.” Meeks pulled the cloak around his bony shoulders. “Just remember your father—”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Daniel muttered.

“Good, because just for a second I saw something in your eyes I didn’t like.” The Englishman moved closer. “Know this. If anything goes wrong—your fault, my fault, anybody’s fault—your father hangs. You understand, Danny boy?”

Daniel nodded.

“I don’t hear you,” Meeks repeated ominously.

“I understand,” Daniel said coldly.

The major seemed satisfied. “You had better leave before Tolbert comes around. He’ll want to kill you for this, of course.”

Daniel glanced from the unconscious man sprawled on the ground back to Josiah Meeks. “He’ll try.”

The horseman turned his mount and rode out of the clearing, down from the knoll and into the woods, pointing the mare west.

A few minutes later, with Black Tolbert revived but groggy, Major Josiah Meeks led the way downhill and off at a canter across the fields in the direction of the Trenton Road. Only when they were out of sight did a shadowy figure detach itself from a hillside overlooking the campsite. This audience of one looked after Meeks and Tolbert for a moment as if undecided which trail to follow. Then, like a hunter after his prey, the horseman swung his mount about and galloped after Daniel McQueen.

G
IDEON STOOD DEFIANTLY AT
the foot of the steps leading up to the front porch that ran the length of the farmhouse. The mastiff, aroused from its afternoon nap in the warm sunlight by the approaching horseman, moved quickly to defend its territory from the encroachment of a stranger. The animal growled, then loosed such a savage series of harks that Daniel was loath to dismount.

A gray-clad woman cradling a bowl of cornmeal batter appeared on the porch. She looked to be in her mid-thirties. An austere, unattractive woman, she retreated in. Then, gripping her wooden spoon like a war club, she crossed to the edge of the porch and glared out at the intruder. It was plain to see she felt no fear. Gideon could more than handle this stranger.

“What business have you here, sir?” she asked.

To her surprise, Daniel dismounted, squatted in the dirt, and called the mastiff by name. Gideon quieted, then took a hesitant step forward, his blunt nose testing the air for the man’s scent. The voice was certainly familiar. Daniel called out again, and this time the huge dog trotted forward and allowed the man to scratch its neck and rub behind its ears.

The woman with the bowl stared in utter disbelief.

“I am Sister Ruth.” Gathering her resolve, she moved to block him should he attempt to enter the house. She brandished her wooden stirring spoon like a club. Batter dripped from its “warhead.”

“Be well, Sister Ruth. I’m a peaceable man.” He held out his arms in a gesture of innocence. However, the flaps of his coat parted to reveal the matched pistols tucked in his belt.

He saw her eyes dart to the weapons and, to set the woman’s mind at ease, drew the guns.

She gasped.

He tucked the “Quakers” into his coat pockets, removed the coat, and draped it over his saddle. Wearing only his linsey-woolsey shirt, trousers, and calf-high black boots, he tethered the mare to a porch post. Sister Ruth continued to keep him from the porch and the open doorway.

“Daniel McQueen!” another voice interjected from inside the house. Sister Hope appeared in the doorway. She looked out of breath as she trundled onto the porch. Her round cheeks reddened as she gasped for air, and her homely face brightened, for McQueen’s arrival provided her with an excuse to escape her chores. She had ten skeins of woolen yarn waiting to be woven on the loom. It could wait.

“You know him?” Sister Ruth exclaimed.

“I do,” Sister Hope replied. “And can you not see Gideon does as well?”

The mastiff had followed McQueen but no longer attempted to intimidate the man. Instead, the animal sat on its haunches and never took its eyes off Sister Hope.