Jim DeFelice - The silver bullet

“ Can we hire a boat north of here?” Jake asked as van Clynne directed him to take a left at the next fork in the road. Even though they’d made remarkable time, he wanted to go faster still, and a boat would shorten the journey.

Van Clynne held off answering as a wagon approached. He nodded at the man driving it as if he knew him and continued on.

“ We’re not taking a boat,” he said. “Too many warships of both sides on the lake.”

Last fall the British had come as far south as Crown Point, about fifteen miles north on Lake Champlain. They were halted by caution, the approaching winter, and an American flotilla. Jake was unsure of the exact status of hostilities on the water, but as his traveling companion seemed extremely well-informed, he followed along without comment.

The Dutchman knew not only every highway and byway here, but also the deer paths and spring streams. They splashed up one of the latter as night came on, avoiding a small village whose population, according to van Clynne, consisted entirely of very nosy housewives. Their immediate destination was a house two miles farther on. It was owned by a Dutchman whose formula for brown porter was unrivaled in the state, according to van Clynne, who began proclaiming the virtues of its brewer as they pushed through the dark woods.

As the lane narrowed, Jake’s sixth sense of danger detection began to assert itself. He didn’t fear a double cross from his companion riding ten yards behind him so much as another ambush, this one more easily accomplished in the blackness. Placing a pistol in his left hand, Jake reined his horse carefully with the other. His eyes scanned for movement and his ears tuned to the specific frequency of human footfalls.

It was just such a sound thirty yards to his right that caught his attention. When he heard the second step he leaped off his horse and sped silently through the woods, gun in hand.

Van Clynne jabbered on, not even aware Jake had dismounted. His first notice of the ambush came with the loud crash and muffled moan the intruder emitted as Jake caught the man from behind, cupping his hand over his mouth to keep him from screaming out.

Pardon — her mouth. There was no mistaking that once he touched the smoothness of her face, Jake, seeing she was unarmed, turned her gently toward him with his left hand, which held the pistol. He was mildly surprised and somewhat pleased to see defiance, not fear, in her eyes.

When he let go, reaching down to pick up her fallen basket of early blueberries, she leveled a blow at his head.

He ducked and upended the girl, grabbing her around the middle.

“ Let me down!” she screamed, kicking and punching. “My father will shoot you if you hurt me.”

“ I meant no harm,” said Jake, setting her down gingerly — her muscles were nearly as strong as her spirit. “I thought you were coming to attack us.”

“ Who are you, riding through the woods at night?” she demanded. “Another soldier from the fort, or some damned Tory?”

“ Johanna! Johanna Blom!” shouted van Clynne, arriving late to the commotion. He explained in very excited Dutch that Jake was a friend and meant no harm.

Jake’s passing knowledge of the language allowed him to add that, had he known their assailant was this pretty, he surely would have surrendered without a fight. The remark prompted Mistress Johanna to attempt another punch, though its intended victim noted that this one was grabbed more easily than the others.

Apologies offered if not wholly accepted, Jake and van Clynne were escorted to the Blom house. Fifty years before, the two-story clapboard affair — as van Clynne explained in his flourishing style — had been an estimable stopping point for travelers. New roads, more dependable boats along the lake, and the failure of the local beaver population had conspired to cause its decline. Blom still let rooms from time to time, and his taproom remained popular with the male population of the small hamlet up the road a quarter of a mile, especially those seeking to avoid their wives.

Jake and his guide were soon sitting in front of the hearth, the fire stoked against the late spring chill, a mug of nut-brown porter in hand. The fire glowed and reflected off the hard-scrubbed floor, turning the whole room a bright yellow.

The porter was round and pleasing in the mouth, Jake had to admit. Even better was Mistress Johanna, who lost none of her spark indoors. As van Clynne and Blom fell into a long debate about the decline in the quality of ale yeasts — a crucial ingredient in the beer — she took up a station to Jake’s left in front of the fireplace. Johanna propped a long iron poker across her lap, though the fire was not in need of much attention at the moment.

“ That’s quite a stick you have,” joked Jake.

“ In case you attack me again, I want to be prepared.”

“ I’m already in your power.”

Johanna shot an embarrassed glance toward her father. He was deep in conversation — surely the decline in yeasts went back fifty years, and had to do with the shift of the Atlantic currents.

Though pretty, Jake had already concluded she was too young for more than the mildest flirting, and he merely nodded and sipped his beer as the girl walked slowly back to the kitchen, hesitating enough to let him know she wouldn’t mind being followed.

Meanwhile, van Clynne and Blom had changed not only their topic of conversation but their style of talking, low whispers replacing loud boasts.

“ You’ve stopped by just in time, Claus,” said Blom. “We have a little adventure planned this evening, around midnight.”

“ A party?”

“ You might say, though the guest of honor won’t take much pleasure in it. The Smiths have been hosting a British agent, who’s trying to recruit the countryside to desert to the king.”

“ Found no takers, I hope.”

“ None. But we can’t have that sort of thing going on in the neighborhood. We’re going to tar and feather the devil tonight, and send him on his way. Myself and a few of the local Liberty boys.” Blom glanced toward Jake, who pretended to be engrossed in watching Johanna leave the room. “Do you think your friend would come along?”

Van Clynne made a face. “I think not.”

Jake slunk back in his spindled chair and waited for the Dutchman to give him away. He had resigned himself to admitting he was an American agent — and positioned his pocket pistol in case they weren’t ready to believe him — when he heard van Clynne say that Jake was a Quaker and thus could not participate in any warfare.

“ Best to leave him totally in the dark,” added the Dutchman.

“ Have you tested his loyalties?”

“ Oh, I vouch for him,” van Clynne bristled. “But let us not take unnecessary chances. The more people who know of an operation, the more chance for something to go wrong. Some people just can’t keep their mouths shut.”

Even disguised as a Tory deserter, Jake Gibbs couldn’t pass up an opportunity to wreak a little havoc on the British cause, especially if all he was sacrificing were a few hours of sleep and the possibility of fending off the innkeeper’s daughter. Besides, he wanted to make sure van Clynne survived to help him north in the morning.

Jake wasn’t sure what to make of the Dutchman’s lie about his being Quaker. Perhaps he felt obligated by their business deal, or else his demonstration of prowess with the pocket pistol was still fresh in the squire’s mind. In any event, van Clynne didn’t mention his planned sojourn when they were packed off to the upstairs room to sleep.

Unlike many backwoods inns, there were separate beds. Jake didn’t object when van Clynne took the one nearest the door, nor did he let on that he was still awake a half hour later when Blom knocked on the door and whispered that it was time to leave. The Dutchman had fallen asleep — his snores were akin to the doleful soundings of a beached whale — and Jake was treated to a few minutes amusement as Blom tried to wake him. Finally, the innkeeper pulled the Dutchman’s beard, and he bolted upright with a start and a whispered curse.