Don Gutteridge - Vital Secrets

“We’re here.”

Marc ducked low and followed the men inside. The hut was windowless, floorless, and, except for the glimmer from a candle-stub on a stump-table, nearly dark. The two who had led Marc here sat down beside a third man, his face also hidden behind a kerchief. Marc squatted down on a log across from them. Between them on the stump lay a saddlebag.

The third man spoke first. “This shouldn’t take long. We need to see the quality of yer merchandise. Then we’ll show you the colour of our money. If both are satisfactory, I’ll hand you written instructions about how and where to drop off the remainder of the goods an’ pick up your full payment.”

“The price has gone up ten percent,” Marc said.

After a tense pause, the third man said, “It’s fifty per rifle or no deal.”

Marc smiled. “No harm in tryin’ a little Yankee horsetradin’, now, is there? Fifty it is.” Marc sighed with some relief: he felt he needed to know what price had originally been agreed upon when he came to count out the cash in the saddlebag.

“Let’s see the goods, then,” said the one who had spoken to him beside the highway. The other man who had accompanied him had said nothing as yet, and appeared to be very jittery, jerking his head from side to side at the least tick of sound.

Marc pulled one of the French Modèles out of the canvas casing into the dim light. While the jittery one held the candle uncertainly in his hand, the other two rotated the weapon over it as if they were roasting a piglet on a spit. One of them gave a low whistle of approval.

“An’ you got ammunition an’ twelve more in addition to these two?”

“Yessiree. But first I need to see the silver.” This was it: once the exchange had been made, the treasonous act would be palpable and irreversible. If any one of these three were caught with the marked rifles, they would be fodder for the executioner.

“It’s all there: U.S. silver coins. You may need a mule to carry it.”

Marc reached for the saddlebag.

“Lemme see the other gun first.”

“Whatever you say. The customer’s always right.” Marc hoped he wasn’t putting it on too thick. He reached for the canvas bag. As he did so, he saw the spokesman for the rebels reach into his cloak and begin to pull out an envelope: the drop-off instructions. We’re almost there, Marc thought with the tiniest flush of triumph.

At that moment, all four of them froze at the sound of a clatter just outside the hut. A second later, a fourth man dressed like the others stumbled inside and cried out breathlessly, “They’re comin’ through the bush from the lakeshore! Soldiers! A whole pack of ’em!”

“What the hell is goin’ on here?” demanded Deep Voice.

Marc stood up. “Nobody followed me! Some bastard’s tattled on us.”

“The deal’s off, Yankee!” shouted the one in charge. “You’re damn lucky I don’t shoot you on the spot.” He snatched the saddlebag up in both hands and barked at the others, “Leave the guns. When they find them here and then pick up this arsehole wanderin’ around lost in the bush, they’ll know who to hang!”

With that, they scrambled for the door and the safety of the woods. They could never be caught once they had a running start. But the jittery one did not immediately follow. He got up as if to go, but suddenly swivelled towards Marc, who had stood his ground. In a quivering, two-handed grip, the man held a cocked pistol. Marc felt its muzzle like an ice-pick under his chin. For an interminable half-minute, it trembled there: Marc could feel the man’s indecision. He didn’t know why, but he closed his eyes. His life, incomplete as it was, did not flash before him.

Then something prompted him to open them again. The pistol was being lowered, inch by agonizing inch. The candlelight from the table was reflected in the barrel and, then, unexpectedly it illuminated the back of the gunman’s left hand, an all-too-familiar hand that bore a throbbing, thick scar. Then the hand, the pistol, and the gunman were gone. There was much commotion in the bush, then all was quiet. Ten minutes later, Marc heard the mad crashing of infantrymen as they staggered into trees and pitfalls.

Marc smashed both fists on the stump-table, furious at Spooner’s blundering intervention, but also gob-smacked by what had just been revealed to him. Thomas Goodall, in his desperation, had thrown in with the would-be insurgents. And that scar on his left hand was the result of no accident: Thomas had no doubt been injured at the donnybrook with the Orangemen the previous spring near Crawford’s Corners. At this very moment he would be skedaddling back home to lay his disappointed body beside that of Winnifred Hatch, and both of them no more than five yards from the woman he was destined to marry. He tried to move, but couldn’t. He was numb. His heart kept pumping, but his brain had given up.

He had no idea how long it was before Lieutenant Spooner careened into the hut, burred and nettled and otherwise beaten about by the Canadian bush. Without ceremony, he teetered in front of Marc and shouted in a furious squeak, “Can you identify any of them?”

There was the slightest pause before Marc heard himself say, “They were all masked.”

“Damn it! Did they take the rifles?”

Marc pointed at the marked samples.

“Damn it! Did they give you money?”

Marc shook his head.

“Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!”

Marc brushed by him out into the shadows.

“And just where do you think you’re going, Lieutenant?”

Marc did not reply. He found the path and strode steadily back towards the Kingston Road. Several shots rang out: the soldiers shooting at one another, no doubt. He found the horse where he had left it. He mounted and galloped away towards the city. Spooner could clean up the mess he had made. The operation was a total failure. None of the rebels had been caught or identified. And none ever would be.

Marc’s first thought was to keep on riding right through the city to the fort, where he could stable the rebels’ horse (stolen surely) overnight and then find himself a warm, safe bed, preferably a long way from the arrogance of authority and the desperation of those without it. In refusing to name Thomas Goodall, he recognized that he had crossed a line, had committed an act that could not be undone. But what precisely that was he did not at this moment care to know: something other than his mind was now directing him willy-nilly where it wished. So be it.

Thus it was that he did not question the horse when it swung down West Market Lane and stopped outside the entrance to Frank’s Hotel. The upper windows of the rooms above the tavern and those above the theatre were all dark except one: the parlour room of Mrs. Thedford’s suite. Something was nagging at him, a vague feeling that he had seen or heard something whose significance he had overlooked. He nudged the horse back into the alley that led to the hotel stables. With the motions of a sleepwalker he found an empty stall, un-saddled the beast, threw a blanket over it, and then, stepping over a comatose stable boy, made his way through the dark to the back door of the Franks’ quarters. Using Frank’s key, Marc eased the door open and felt his way along the hallway that eventually brought him to the theatre entrance. The stage area was pitch black, except where a single shaft of moonlight sliced through one of the upper windows and across the pit. There was no tragedian to take a bow in its mellow beam. Marc crossed the stage, pausing to take in an echo of applause, and tiptoed up the stairs to the hallway above. Jeremiah Jefferson was fast asleep with the storage-room door ajar.

Marc headed for Merriwether’s room, where he had left his own boots, tunic, and accoutrements, but halted outside the door with the wedge of light under it. Perhaps Mrs. Thed-ford was sitting just beyond it at the little davenport-table that served as her desk, working on the company’s books or revising the playbill for Detroit or completing the travel arrangements that her murdered colleague would have handled. He felt she was someone he could talk to about matters too painful and complex to be uttered to oneself. He raised his hand to give a one-finger tap on the door, but as his palm brushed it on the way up, it swung silently open. The room was fully lit, but empty. Surely she had not gone to bed in the other room and left half a dozen candles blazing here? But, then, perhaps she had merely gone into that room to fetch something and, overcome by physical and emotional fatigue, had put her head on the pillow and fallen into a deep sleep. He decided he would just take a quick peek inside, then snuff the candles and leave quietly.