Don Gutteridge - Turncoat

Marc withdrew his lips.

“Father began to understand and feel the way his son had, and then he began to believe in the cause itself. Tory though he was, through and through, he came slowly to see that the injustices were unthinkingly or callously caused-and by the very people he so looked up to and revered as the pillars and mainstays of the province. And that they could be cured without the collapse of the state and the ruination of the worthies in the capital.”

“He must have felt the conflict terribly.”

“He did. He started neglecting his friends. Then he started skipping Wednesdays at the Georgian Club. The day before Christmas he walked over and told Mr. Child he couldn’t come anymore.”

She had finished. Marc drew her face up to his. She pulled away, reluctantly-or so it seemed to him.

Durfee was about to point the horses north onto the Miller Sideroad when instead he drew them to a sudden halt. “Christ,” he said, “the door to the inn’s wide open!”

Marc and Durfee leapt from the cutter and rushed into the saloon area of the inn. The door to the inner office hung by one hinge. Durfee found a match, lit a candle, and the two men went in cautiously. The unbreakable safe lay sideways in the middle of the room. Axe marks and dents from a sledge marred every inch of it, the rage and frustration of the perpetrator appallingly evident. In a final fit of frenzy, he had taken his axe to Durfee’s desk and cupboard and chopped them to pieces. Papers and spilled ink were everywhere.

“What kinda madman would do a thing like this?” Durfee sighed, leaning against the wall to steady himself.

“Only you, me, and Hatch knew the money was here,” said Marc, “as did Connors and O’Hurley.”

Durfee knelt down to open the safe, and moments later he withdrew a wad of American banknotes. “Well, they didn’t get it, did they?” He riffled through it with some satisfaction.

A slip of paper, not a banknote, fluttered out.

Durfee held the candle while Marc examined the paper. It was about four by five inches and, judging from the torn edges, had been ripped from a larger document.

“Are you all right, James?” It was Emma, in the taproom.

“Stay out there, ladies. We’ll be right out.”

“It looks like a list of their customers,” Marc said.

“For tinware, or somethin’ more potable?”

“Can’t tell. All we got here is a list of names. The rest of the sheet is missing.”

“That paper looks awfully old.”

“True. But the writing is similar to that on a whisky list Hatch and I found out at the cave by Bass Cove.”

“Ya don’t say. Then it’s rum-runnin’ we’re lookin’ at for sure.”

Marc did not hear this remark. He was staring at a name near the bottom of the list.

“What is it?” Durfee said.

“There’s a J. Smallman listed here. And the name’s been crossed out.”

“An old list for sure, then. You think young Jesse was involved in this business?”

“I don’t know, James. But there is one thing I do know for certain. Everything about the death of his father points to smugglers and their doings. It’s been about rum-running all along. I should have seen that before now.”

“The keg of liquor Hatch said you found in Jesse’s barn?”

“Yes. And there’s only one place a fugitive rum-runner could hide without fear of discovery.”

“Mad Annie’s.”

“I’ve got to get there and find Connors before the sheriff and his posse flush him out. And when I find him, I’ll thrash the answers out of him.”

“You can’t go out there into the bush in that costume,” Beth said to Marc in the taproom as the men prepared for their mission.

“The lass is right,” Emma said. “They’ll see you comin’ for miles.”

“And there may be shootin’,” Beth said.

“I’ll pick up my pistol and sabre at the mill,” Marc said.

“Come to my place first, then. Jess’s clothes’ll fit you fine.”

Half an hour later Marc and Durfee were on their way up Crawford Creek in the cutter. A fresh team borrowed from Barnaby’s place next door moved in sprightly fashion over the powdered snow on the creek ice. Marc was dressed in a coonskin cap, grey ribbed wool sweater, plaid mackinaw, corduroy breeches, and woodcutter’s boots.

Marc thought that, with luck, they might arrive at the junction of the two creeks before the magistrate and his deputies. What exactly they would do after that Marc had not worked out yet. But Connors held the key to Joshua’s death. Marc recalled with a shudder the viciousness of the blow that had been meant to send him to his Maker last Monday night. Connors had even said to O’Hurley, “It’s your turn.” How naive, and arrogant, he had been in dismissing out of hand a pair of would-be murderers and boasting of where they could find their saddlebag if they had the gumption to come and get it! Well, if he didn’t unearth Connors, he’d ride thirty miles to Perry’s Corners and have a run at O’Hurley.

“They’ve beat us to the trough!” Durfee cried.

Four sleighs loomed out of the light snow that still descended peacefully, indifferently upon the countryside.

“Welcome to the show, lads!” MacLachlan boomed as they pulled up.

Philander Child was standing beside him on the driver’s bench. “All right, gentlemen. Mr. Collins here, who knows these woods well, is going to lead us through to Mad Annie’s. The strategy is to fan out and surround the place. Fire your pistols only in the air. I want no one shot. If they are armed and fire back, well, that will be another story. But I doubt that will happen. At heart, these hooligans are cowards and turncoats. They’ll run like rabbits into our trap and then fall over each other trying to play innocent and cast blame anywhere but on themselves. They are the dregs of civilization. Let’s clean ’em out!”

The deputized lawmen jumped down and began snowshoeing into the woods behind the energetic stepping of Philander Child and his man, John Collins. Durfee and Hatch walked with Marc, offering earnest but contradictory bits of advice on the subtle art of manipulating raquettes. Twenty minutes later, they chuffed up behind the vanguard and peered into the clearing that separated the posse and the wretched cabins of Mad Annie’s menagerie.

Marc and Durfee were instructed to follow the sheriff and several constables to the right, while the others shuffled to the left. They stuck close to the verge of the woods for cover, but little activity was visible in the main cabin ahead or the half dozen huts teetering around it. A pathetic droop of smoke from its chimney indicated a near-dead fire. If the Pringles were expecting trouble, or were wide awake anguishing over the capture of their matriarch, they were doing so quietly. By the same token, no constable or magistrate had ever before come within two hundred yards of the main cabin: the booby-trapped swamp and a general public indifference had kept the Pringles secure for a generation. And, Marc was thinking, what safer haven for a murderer on the run?

The vigilantes spread out silently, then crouched down, awaiting the signal. Five minutes later, John Collins fired his pistol into the air, and each man strode determinedly forward. The only escape route for the besieged would be the frozen swamp to the southeast, and in the dark its leg-hold traps would be as deadly as a bullet in the back.

Several more shots were fired, but the first one had produced the effect the magistrate was hoping for. Half-dressed or nude figures spilled out of every door and hatch of the several hovels-at first shrieking in blind terror, then scrambling in bewilderment and shock as the ring of armed men marched closer and cried out for their surrender.