Jim DeFelice - The Golden Flask

"Stop pounding my wall, Tory," said the keeper. "You'll get no food here."

Jake accepted the challenge, pushing the door entirely open and taking two strides inside. Just as he was about to repeat his story that he was a Quaker — and add another shilling to the price he was willing to pay — a lad stepped out from behind a curtain at the side.

The boy had not come into the room empty-handed. He pointed a large and most efficient-looking blunderbuss in Jake's face.

"Put your hands up, traitor," said the young man. The peach fuzz had not yet bloomed on the fifteen-year-old's cheek, but he had a sharp look in his eyes nonetheless.

The sheer number of projectiles in the thick barrel of his gun made it very difficult for the weapon to miss — a fact Jake was acutely aware of as he held out his hands in surrender.

"I'm afraid there's been some misunderstanding," he ventured. "I'm just a poor traveler, come for a bit of food. I saw by your sign that you were an inn."

"And I see by your dress that you are a deserter," said the innkeeper, putting his hands on his hips with some satisfaction. "We watched you ride down the road. You are heading south toward the river and the British strongholds. You are under arrest."

The boy with the gun stood motionless. No doubt this was his first time holding someone at gunpoint; Jake hoped his finger didn't develop a sudden itch.

"The fact that I wear a hunting shirt does not make me a member of the militia," said Jake calmly. "Nor does my destination mean I am a deserter."

"The militia and all of the army have gone north," replied the keeper, rubbing his hand on the front of the smock he wore over his clothes. "The alarm has gone out that there are redcoats abroad, and we have been told to be on the lookout for deserters."

"But I'm not one.”

The keeper gingerly reached beneath Jake's shirt, removing the gun and knife from his belt. He also took a small, water-tight pouch that contained some papers, Franklin's pass among them.

The keeper thumbed through the documents so quickly that it was obvious he had not paused to read them. Nonetheless, he proclaimed that he had proof Jake was a deserter.

"The committee of safety is meeting a short distance away in the morning," said the man. "You can beg their mercy, though I doubt it will do you much good."

"I wonder," said Jake, turning sideways to his right as if to address both father and son at the same time, "if I might sit at one of your tables?" He put his left arm out slowly, pointing to the side, all the while watching the lad. "If I am to wait for the committee, then I cannot stand all night."

"Well — " started the father. The rest of his sentence was cut off by the loud crash of the blunderbuss discharging.

Into the ceiling. Jake had thrown himself into the boy, taking care to push the gun upwards first. The thick brass of the barrel flamed hot as ten balls exploded from its mouth; fortunately, they found their home in the thick ceiling beams, adding a decorative circular pattern to what had been simple if stout pine timbers.

And the boy…

"You're a girl," said Jake, rising. His push into her had proven the matter beyond doubt.

"I'm as strong as any boy my age," she replied, bolting up after him. "And I'll get you, Tory bastard."

She tried to make up for mishandling the gun by wrestling the intruder to the ground. Jake picked her up in his arms, twirled her around the room as she flailed, and, as gently as possible, tossed her at her father. The pair collapsed backward into the fireplace, sending a spray of dust and embers into the room. Jake picked up the blunderbuss from the floor where it fell, stomped on the cinders to keep them from starting a fire on the chestnut floorboards.

"What will you do with us now, Sir Tory?" demanded the keeper indignantly after retrieving himself from the fire.

"I'm not a Tory," said Jake. As the man had proved himself a stout if less than fully effective champion of the Cause, the spy decided to trust him. He reached into his sock and pulled out the paper with Washington's signature. "Few deserters carry a warrant from the commander-in-chief," he said.

The keeper grabbed his daughter as she was about to fly into Jake. "Read these for me," he said, adding in an apologetic voice, "the light here is too dim for me."

Which, of course, wasn't true; though Jake thought it more polite not to mention that fact, especially as it had possibly saved his life a moment ago, the keeper deciding to bluff rather than actually discovering the evidence against him.

The girl could read very well, and she was soon nodding at her father, telling him in an awed voice that the man they had tried to arrest could charge "whatsoever honest amount he deems appropriate" and was "to be regarded with respect" as dictated by His Excellency, General Washington.

"A hundred apologies, sir. A thousand, indeed. Paul Brown, at your service. Ask for anything. This is a patriot house. Stout patriots, as the neighbors will attest. Let me get you something to eat and drink. You must be tired after our — our discussion as it were."

"It has been a long day," allowed Jake, replacing the pass in its hiding place.

The keeper showed him to a seat at a table near the fireplace and presented him with a wooden bowl of baked beans and a full pewter tankard of very hard cider.

"Those beans are our best," said Brown, who was now hospitable to a fault, fussing over each bite Jake

took. "Alison learned the recipe from her mother, God rest her soul. Daughter takes after her, lucky for me."

"Your wife dressed as a boy?"

"I am close to the river here, sir, and not far from the British for all that," said Brown. "With a fifteen-year-old girl, well, as you appear to be a man acquainted with military matters, I need not tell you of certain indecencies the British have taken of late in this province. What I said before is true; there are strong rumors of redcoat raids this evening."

But her father's opinion and Alison's reasons for wearing breeches were perhaps not in total harmony. For the girl clearly chafed as he spoke.

"I'm not afraid of any British soldier," she declared. Her pants were a size or so too big, as was her shirt, but Jake judged that she would soon burst out in ways that shorn hair and rough clothes could not disguise. "I am as brave as any boy, and twice as strong."

Jake smiled at her.

"I am, sir. And I am as great a lover of freedom as anyone in the country, of any gender. I wish to serve the Cause and enlist. Other women have done so, and helped out quite handsomely."

"Hush now, Alison. Let the man eat."

"Please, sir, if you know General Washington, take me to him. I would like to be a soldier."

"Alison!"

Jake looked up from his food, bemused. "A strong patriot, eh?"

"As strong as anyone."

"You make good beans."

"Do not try to sweeten me with your tongue, sir. I know that is what spies are always doing."

"What makes you think I am a spy?"

"With a note from General Washington and a direction toward New York, what else would you be?"

Jake winked at her father. "I wouldn't think of joining the army if I were you," he said. "Sleeping on the ground night after night puts a sharp kink in your back. And the food is not as good as this."

"You mock me, sir." Alison stood before him at the table, hands on her hips.

"I do have need of a guide," said Jake, addressing her father. "I would like to find the most inconspicuous way to a ferry near Perth Amboy. I realize I'm quite a distance off."

"You are indeed, sir," whistled the keeper. "You'll never make Perth tonight, and would spend a good portion of tomorrow, if not the next day. It's in British hands, besides."

"I need to be in Manhattan by daybreak."