Jim DeFelice - The Golden Flask

"Like hell. I have a report of rebel activity, and am to secure the area."

"You are speaking damn saucy to an officer, sergeant," said Daltoons, thinking his subordinate extending the part they had sketched. Alison's sighting prompted Daltoons to push the episode quicker than rehearsed.

"This looks to me to be a duel, sir, explicitly prohibited. A punishable offense, I might say."

"Talk to me privately, sergeant," said Daltoons. "That is an order."

"I'm not sure you are in a position to order anyone about," answered the sergeant, who nonetheless retreated a few steps with Daltoons — and was almost cuffed.

"Take Lord William back if he won't go on his own."

"We're letting him go? I thought we were arresting them."

"Do as I say. The real British are coming. Get Buckmaster the hell out of here. Jake wants him to think his brother-in-law is dead. Go now, before we're all shot."

The sergeant looked back. "Jesus, they look dead to me."

"Just go, you turnip-eating fool!"

"I would not use such intemperate language, captain," answered the sergeant.

As the redcoat captain and sergeant were having their tete-a-tete, Lord William walked gravely to his fallen brother-in-law. Tears had formed in his eyes, and he shook his head as he bent down to examine the prostrate body. The red liquid of the ball had done the job Bebeef had promised, not merely poisoning its victim but splattering him with Death's sanguine signature.

"Damn you, Clayton," said Lord William. "Damn you. He was nothing to die for."

Alison, meanwhile, was hunkered over Jake, sobbing quite convincingly.

"My lord, quickly." Daltoons reached down and lifted the man up. He steered him a few feet away. "Go back to New York while I deal with this. Have your man row you back. I will have your brother-in-law's body returned to you as soon as possible. We will invent an accident, and I will find a doctor who will sign a statement covering the death."

"But …"

Daltoons gave the sergeant a glance, and the man advanced, putting his hand on Buckmaster's shoulder.

"I would not want a stain to come upon your family because of this," said Daltoons. "This bastard of a sergeant is not settling for a light price. Go quickly before he changes his mind. More soldiers are on their way, and they may bring an officer of higher rank than myself. The scandal will be unavoidable then."

Lord William hesitated. Truly he had lost so much in these past few months that a blot on his family's name for dueling — or rather, for having lost a duel — was nothing.

"Your wife, sir. Go to your wife."

The indecision melted. Lord William nodded, and let himself be directed to the rowboat by the sergeant and his servant.

They were passed on the way by the "surgeon" whom Daltoons had waited on earlier. Huffing and puffing as he appeared from the waterside, in considerable agitation and complaining not only of the weather but the fact that no one in the country knew how to duel properly any more, Claus van Clynne made his very belated appearance at the top of the hillside.

Whereupon he saw his fallen comrade.

The cry that followed could not be described in any manner that would portray it with the least degree of accuracy. One might cite the tremendous, pained explosion that falls from a moose's lips when its mate is felled by a hunter in the wild; it might perchance be compared to the fabled sad trumpet of an elephant reaching the holy burial ground of its breed. The famous wail of trumpets that brought down Jericho could be mentioned. Yet none of these sounds would catch the nuances, the depth, the range of the Dutchman's vast and sonorous lament.

“ If only you had waited for me,” sobbed van Clynne, pulling at his hair. “Surely I would have saved you. How many times have I plucked you from danger in the past? We were an inseparable pair. What will I do for an assistant now?”

The Dutchman beat his breast with deep and genuine fervor. "Who will recommend me to General Washington? How will I get my property back?"

"Crocodile tears," said Alison.

"Do not think because you have finally found your proper clothes that I will allow you to be impertinent," said van Clynne. "There was a time when even young misses showed the proper respect for their elders. This is what the British have wrought: cynicism among the young. I am almost glad that you are not alive to see this sorry state," the Dutchman added, addressing his fallen comrade. "It would be more than your tender constitution could bear."

"Tender constitution?"

"Do not profane the dead with your remarks, child. Remember there is an afterlife. You, sir," van Clynne rose and found Daltoons. "I hold you fully responsible for this poor man's demise. The Revolution has lost its finest soldier. More harm has been done today to our cause than at any three battles on the continent."

Daltoons ignored him, hurrying his men to deposit the seemingly lifeless bodies in the cart hauled by other assistants and just now appearing from the woods. He took a rifle and ran to the edge of the bluff overlooking the shore, in time to see Buckmaster and his servant push off. Two genuine British boats were just making shore.

"I would have stopped this duel," wailed van Clynne, turning back to his fallen comrade. "Had I not been delayed by the perfidious tides, slow horses, and the contingencies of, the contingencies — "

"Of breakfast?" shot Alison, borrowing a canteen from the sergeant who had given Daltoons so much lip.

"He will have a fine burial, as fine a funeral as ever mounted in this land. Washington himself will be a pallbearer, and I right behind him, assuming my grief subsides."

While van Clynne wove plans for the funeral, Alison poured water directly into the hole the poisoned bullet had cut. Jake opened his eyes slowly, then pulled up with the soft groan of one interrupted from a pleasant dream.

"He should be taken to Philadelphia immediately," van Clynne continued, addressing the heavens with his upturned eyes. "Given a procession through the city, and then interred in a place where the Congress can visit his grave every day for inspiration. Near a tavern, of course."

"Sounds like a lot of trouble," said Jake.

"Oh no, sir, it is but a trifle. I would think Congress would be happy for the diversion." Van Clynne blinked, suddenly realizing he was talking to a dead man. Daltoons caught him as he fell backwards in a faint.

"A drug from Professor Bebeef," Jake explained. "The antidote is pure water, as Alison has so obligingly demonstrated. Our friend Bauer will be like this for an hour. Were the others convinced?"

"Quite," said Daltoons. "But we must leave immediately. The soldiers arriving below are not ours."

Van Clynne, having recovered from his shock, gave Jake a hearty pat on the back. "Well now, I think the entire episode has progressed very nicely. My acting clinched the effect completely."

"Your acting?"

"Indeed, sir. I knew you were but momentarily indisposed, and endeavored to give the best show."

"Uh-huh."

The body of the prostrate Tory was hoisted into the cart. The horse began moving before the lieutenant could even produce the whip.

"Smith's lies a league or so from here," Daltoons told Jake as the company double-timed into the woods. "Will that do for your plans?"

"Very nicely. Alison and I had quite an adventure reaching you," added Jake, but just as he started to tell Daltoons why he had arrived so late, a man appeared ahead at a bend in the path. Jake bolted forward, flying at him. Before anyone realized what was happening, he had thrown Christof Egans to the ground and pinned him beneath his knees. He pulled the white Oneida's long strand of hair through his fingers, threatening him with his other fist.