Robert Conroy - Liberty - 1784

They both nodded and smiled happily at the thought of him leaving so quickly. “We’d be honored,” Winnie said, her normally sour face breaking into a smile.

“And tonight I’ll sleep in the barn. I’m used to that sort of thing and I wouldn’t want to put you nice people out.”

He got no argument from Francis and Winnie. In the barn, Will spread a blanket they’d given him on some straw and pretended to go to sleep. After a while, he heard a rustling outside and then heavy breathing by the wall. Cousin Francis, he decided, was about as quiet as a herd of horses. When Francis went back to the house, Will followed him far more silently.

“He’s sound asleep,” Francis told Winnie. “If I leave right now, I can get help and be back in a couple of hours.”

“Why not just let him leave like he says he’s going to,” Winnie hissed.

“Because the bastard’s a rebel and, besides, there’s a ten-pound reward for turning in escaped prisoners. Or did you believe that bullshit about him being demoted from officer for fighting? The Will Drake I remember was too self-righteous to get his sanctimonious ass in that kind of trouble. We turn him in and we get the reward along with seeing that he doesn’t ever trouble us about this land.”

At least they think highly of me, Will thought as he listened through the glassless window.

They argued a little more, but Francis prevailed. He left at a trot and Winnie sat on a chair with a musket across her lap and stared fixedly at the door.

Will decided he wanted that musket. It was fairly new and looked as if it had been cared for. He took a rock and threw it at the barn. Winnie, who had been half dozing, awoke with a start and ran to the door, her musket held firmly before her.

As she stepped outside, Will slipped through the window and hid beside the door. When Winnie turned and entered, it was simplicity itself to grab the musket’s barrel and yank it from her. He laughed as he saw it wasn’t even cocked. Winnie, however, started to scream. Will shoved her back down in the chair and clamped his hand over her mouth.

“Winnie, I am not going to hurt you unless you make me, so be still. But if I do have to hurt you I will do so very terribly. Do you understand?”

She nodded, he eyes still wide with terror. Will released his hand from her mouth and replaced it with a gag made from dirty torn cloth. He tied her arms and legs to the chair while she moaned. Her nightdress had fallen open and her flat, sagging breasts were exposed. Will shook his head. He’d been a long time without a woman, but he wasn’t that desperate. He fastened her nightdress, which calmed her, took the musket, and went outside into the darkness. He had human prey to stalk.

Will moved about a half a mile away from the house and down the rude path that his cousin had just used. He settled himself in some brush and waited.

He didn’t have long. The sound of footsteps and gasping breath told him that his cousin had returned and had brought some help. As Will had hoped, there was only one other man. He didn’t think his cousin would want to involve too many people. They’d have to split the reward even more ways if he had.

Will let them shamble past him and began to follow a few yards behind. He wasn’t worried about being detected. They were fixated on the farmhouse and were making a lot of noise. Francis looked unarmed, but the other man had a musket, and a pistol was stuck in the waist of his pants. When they got to within a few hundred yards of the house, Cousin Francis and the other man stopped and gathered themselves, breathing deeply. He heard them murmuring a plan. They would approach the barn as quietly as they could and surprise what they expected would be a sleeping Will.

They were so intent on what was ahead of them that they paid no attention to their rear. Will did not think twice about such a thing as fighting fair. He’d been in too much combat to believe that killing someone else before he could kill you was not fair. You did it in order to survive.

Will approached them and, when he was within a few yards, he fired, shooting the man with the musket in the back. As Francis turned in shock, Will ran up and hit him in the head with the stock of the now empty musket.

It was over in seconds. He checked the man he’d shot. He was dead with a hole in his back that left a gaping exit wound in his chest. Francis was out cold, and a lump was forming on his skull. Will hoped he hadn’t killed the greedy, treacherous fool, and then wondered why he cared.

After pushing the dead body well into the field where it couldn’t be seen, he dragged Francis into the house. No one was near enough to have heard the shot, or they simply didn’t care. Winnie began to moan again when she saw her husband’s bloody and unconscious body.

“You’re not stupid,” Will said to her. “I’m going to loosen your bonds so you can get yourself out of them in a while. If anybody tries to follow me, I’ll kill them just like I did that other Tory bastard outside. Remember that I didn’t kill Francis, even though I could have and with ease. He stole my farm and was going to sell me back to that stinking prison for ten miserly pounds. Your husband is a cruel cheap shit. Even Judas wanted thirty pieces of silver.”

Francis began whimpering and groaning, so Will tied him up as well. He again turned to Winnie and loosened both her bonds and her gag. When he was satisfied she could get help for herself and dear Cousin Francis, Will searched the house for useful things to take with him. He settled on an ax, a knife, a bullet mold, lead, and powder. They had some bread and dried meat, so he took that as well. He also now had two muskets and a pistol. You could never have too many weapons, he thought. He would never be taken alive.

As he stepped out into the night, he checked the stars and headed roughly west. It was in that direction that Fort Washington, and whatever Liberty was, were said to be. He only wondered just how far away they were.

* * *

Major James Fitzroy thought the city of New York was depressing and squalid. More than thirty thousand people, many of them enthusiastically if belatedly proclaiming their loyalty to King George III and the government of Lord North and General Cornwallis, were jammed into its narrow and winding streets. There were two exceptions to the rule of narrowness, Broad Street and De Heere Street, which was also called the Broad Way. These seemed to be the center of what life existed in New York.

Much of the town was still in ruins from the fire of 1776, and little had been done to rebuild. That took money, and the country was still in a state of war.

Fitzroy was puzzled. He wondered why, if the people were so solidly behind the king, were so many of them ignoring him or worse, glaring at him when they thought he wasn’t looking? In the weeks since his arrival, he’d noticed that he got better service in a tavern or a shop when he didn’t wear his uniform. He was beginning to think that the veneer of loyalty in the colonies was very thin indeed.

He had a small room on the second floor of a pleasant inn on Wall Street, once the site of the city’s walls and now a place where merchants and investors congregated. At least they’d used to when the city was vibrant and alive. It was an easy walk to Fort George, which meant that he didn’t have to live in the cramped officer’s quarters inside the fort. No matter how small and overpriced his room might be, it was his and a hundred times better than living with his stinking and dirty brother officers.

Adding to the city’s problems was the influx of soldiers and sailors from the fleet and convoy. Admirals like William Cornwallis could and did live in elegance on their ships, but army officers had to go ashore, as did their men. This meant imposition and resentment as soldiers were quartered in civilian homes. It was ironic in that the forcible quartering of soldiers in private homes was one of the issues that had caused the rebellion in the first place, and now those who’d remained loyal were suffering from it.