Jim DeFelice - The silver bullet

Jake stepped back gingerly, the pain in his knee momentarily vanquished by the officer’s sword. He had his pocket pistol hidden beneath his shirt, but the officer gave him no opportunity to grab for it, keeping his blade at Jake’s face as he retreated backward. Theirs was a slow, steady procession, a study in precision greatly in contrast to the pandemonium nearby. The officer was grinning, obviously confident that he had the advantage. Possibly he hoped to take Jake alive, for otherwise he should have pressed his advantage with considerably more vigor. He could at least have slashed a few times in front of Jake’s face to increase his fear. Instead he moved forward with the steady pace of the grim reaper, intent on his duty and confident he would eventually have his man.

A strategy presented itself to Jake as he felt the wall of the building behind him. A candle tossed in someone’s face has the effect of drawing his attention away from everything else. Jake could then whisk his gun out and fire at leisure.

The officer followed him as he edged along the building. He had not yet called on Jake to surrender, and as Jake backed up he realized why. The officer’s eyes were crossed in psychotic wrath; the blast had knocked some part of his psyche loose, and he meant to back Jake against the wall and slowly, gradually, run him through the face with his sword. He would make the American an example of what happened to traitors to the Crown.

Jake fully intended to be a model for others, but with a much different outcome. He reached the window where the candle was, put out his hand — and came up empty.

The candle wasn’t there.

Jake took his eye off the officer for the briefest of moments, a mindless reaction at losing the item he most sought. But inattention as certain moments is nearly always fatal.

So it would have been in this case, had not the officer been hit squarely in the head by a round ball made of lead, approximately three-quarters of an inch in diameter. The bullet left a vast splatter of red and a look of puzzlement on the officer’s face as he fell to the ground.

“ The patriots are winning,” said a fair, slim-waisted woman in her mid-twenties, standing in the open door with a musket in her arms. The little girl Jake had helped inside earlier peeked from behind her dress.

Jake still suffered temporary deafness, but there are certain thoughts so profound they can break through any disability. He kissed the woman’s cheek in gratitude, then grabbed the officer’s sword and rushed back to the prisoners and wagon.

Given the circumstances, the kiss was a long delay, and though Jake did not berate himself for it, van Clynne certainly might had he seen it. In the event, however, the Dutchman was much too busy trying to rouse the chained prisoners by rubbing their faces with his antidote-drenched coat. He managed to revive one, but the potion had lost its potency, and he soon realized that his only hope of saving them was to drag them down the street, away from the fire and confusion.

By now the nearby citizens were rallying to the situation. It is true that the crowd was far from unanimous in its support of the patriots, and it will be duly recorded somewhere that a few Royalists ran to aid the soldiers. But van Clynne found his efforts to haul the prisoners to safety assisted by three or four strong lads, one of whom was already yelling the way to a smithy. He let them take charge of the men and turned back to find the fifth Liberty man, the one who had saved their lives aboard ship.

He found him lying on the ground, still dazed. Van Clynne hoisted the man on his back — it was easy enough, if you thought of the man as a pipe of beer — and was just scanning the street for an escape route when Jake came up running.

Hopping, actually, since the pain in his knee was acute. Even so, an escape in the general confusion was child’s play. Their horses quickly recovered, they started up the street as everyone’s attention was drawn to one of the shops which suddenly erupted in flame. A few loud explosions indicated that perhaps its owner had not been the good Loyalist his neighbors thought.

The smell of burnt gunpowder was still fresh in Jake’s nostrils fifteen minutes later, when he and van Clynne paused on their hasty retreat from the city. They had commandeered another wagon — this one free for the taking, its driver apparently giving his full attention to the fire. The rescued Liberty man slept soundly in the back as van Clynne drove its two horses and Jake rode along behind with van Clynne’s. Jake hearing had returned, providing some compensation for his other aches and injuries. The Dutchman was a worn as her, and with night already well on its way, both wanted nothing more than to find some field where they could sleep.

This was not the place to do so, however. They had to get north of the island as quickly as possible, before a thorough search could be mounted for the escapee.

As van Clynne steadfastly refused to go anywhere near the water, the best course was a quick run north across King’s Bridge. They would need papers, however to pass the sentries there. Jake knew a man nearby whom he could call on in need, Edward O’Connor, a farmer well-connected with the patriot network in both the city and Bouwerie. While he was loath to expose anyone else to risk today, Jake decided he must contact the man and see if he could facilitate their escape.

He also hoped the farmer could care for his liberated prisoner. The Liberty man’s reaction to the noise keg was extreme, and Jake worried that he had been permanently harmed. The man was still unconscious, and Jake feared his bumpy wagon ride was complicating his injuries.

“ O’Connor’s farm is just on the other side of this hill,” Jake told van Clynne. “Pull the wagon behind those trees there and wait while I go and see what sort of reinforcements I can get.”

“ The only reinforcement I need,” said the Dutchman in a grumpy voice, “is a good mug of ale and a feather bed.”

“ We’ll stop at Prisco’s tavern,” promised Jake. “I’m sure you’ll find a warm reception there.”

Van Clynne garumphed in reply — but it was a gentle garumph, as his responses went.

O’Connor told Jake that passing out of the city over either of the northern bridges would be extremely dangerous, even with the proper papers, as a general alert had been sounded because of the earlier riot and reports of rebel activity. It would be much easier to escape by boat to the opposite shore and then north through East Chester. In fact, he could send word to his brother and have the boat waiting when they arrived. A second dispatch was made for a doctor, and O’Connor ordered his daughter to prepare a bed in the barn loft while he went back with Jake to fetch his fallen comrade.

“ These trees or those?” O’Connor asked as they descended the hill to the road where Jake had left van Clynne.

“ These,” said Jake, leading the way.

To the wrong trees.

But the wagon was not behind the other clump, either.

“ You sure it was here?”

“ Positive,” responded Jake, but after a few minutes of searching, he had to admit that he was not sure of anything anymore. He and O’Connor ventured across the field to a spot that presented yet another excellent hiding place, shielded not only from the road but from their approach.

There they found the wagon and van Clynne, with his hands tied behind his back and his mouth gagged.

O’Connor put his lamp down next to him and undid his knots and gag, but before the Dutchman could say anything, Jake felt a sharp poke in the back.