Jim DeFelice - The silver bullet

"But we just agreed on the equivalent of six guilders. We started at dollars and translated that, and now I shall calculate it in pounds — I can add, say, one percent inflation if you like, but this late in the season I will have a difficult time selling the pelts myself."

"We agreed on nothing," said Gerk, once more brandishing his knife. "Six guilders is robbery. You are a liar and a thief and a cur, and I am going to kill you where you sit."

There was only so much van Clynne could take, even from a fellow countryman with a knife and an evil glint in his eye. To be called a liar and a thief and a cur in the same sentence called for immediate action.

After another sip of ale.

Van Clynne took up his tankard slowly, managed a strong if slow pull, and then splashed the remainder of its contents into Gerk's face. This distraction gave him the advantage he needed to upset the table with his prodigious waist. Gerk was taken by surprise and fell to the floor, where the sharp bounce of his head off the hard wooden plank immobilized him.

Pohl, meanwhile, jumped back out of the way. He was not so reasonable as van Clynne believed, however. In fact, as van Clynne leaned over Gerk's prostrate body to retrieve the knife, Pohl drew a pocket pistol from its hiding place at the back of his coat and aimed at van Clynne.

It was a small weapon twenty years old, in mediocre repair. The ball it held was no more than the size of a small bumblebee. Nonetheless, even a bee’s sting, properly aimed, can be fatal, and van Clynne presented a large target of opportunity. An immense target, actually. And difficult to miss. But Pohl missed nonetheless, thanks to the timely intervention of a stranger, who had been sitting nearby with his lunch. He threw Pohl’s arm upward and punched him in the side. The pistol flew into the air, where the stranger promptly snatched it.

“ Nasty little thing,” said the man, looking at the gun. “Shouldn’t go waving these in public; they often misfire.”

The stranger’s quip as well as his exploits will readily identify him to all who have already made his acquaintance — the interloper was none other than Lieutenant Colonel Jake Stewart Gibbs, having stopped here for a bit of lunch after riding all morning and most of the previous night.

The proprietor of the inn appeared in the doorway, wearing the universal look of dread innkeepers all over the world put on when they ask the question: Who will pay for this mess?

Van Clynne went to the keeper and whispered an answer so eloquent that the man promptly escorted his two assailants to the door.

“ I hate to resort to violence,” complained van Clynne to the man who saved his life. “But I will not be called a cur, even by a fellow countryman. It will cost me seventy skins, but — well, had they been any good, undoubtedly he would have sold them much earlier; the season in truth is gone. Frankly, I deal with him only because I’ve a soft spot for his wife and children. It’s a disease, compassion; it robs a businessman of good sense.”

“ No doubt.”

“ Your name, sir?”

“ Jake Gibbs. And yours?”

“ Claus van Clynne,” said the Dutchman with a flourish. “Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

As Jake bowed his head in answer to van Clynne’s gesture, the Dutchman fixed on Jake’s tricornered hat and frowned. Such hats were common among English-bred colonists; surely their creases conformed to some irregularity within the skull. His opinion of the stranger dropped appreciably, though he was careful not to share it.

“ Thank you, sir, for your assistance,” said van Clynne gracefully. “I am obliged.”

“ No problem. Always pleased to help a fellow traveler.”

“ Yes, yes.” Van Clynne harrumphed in the direction of the pocket pistol which Jake still held in his hand.

“ I think not,” Jake replied, understanding that van Clynne wanted it.

“ Thieves come in all shapes and sizes these days,” grumbled the Dutchman. “The whole world is going to hell.”

“ I didn’t say I was keeping it. Just that I wouldn’t give it to you.” He carefully uncocked the miniature lock and unscrewed the barrel to remove the bullet. “Buy me a drink?”

“ Buy you a drink?”

“ I did save your life.”

“ Yes, well, perhaps he would have missed.”

Jake tapped the belly in front of him but said nothing, motioning to the chair instead and calling over the innkeeper for two ales.

“ On me,” said Jake. “You’re a trader?”

Van Clynne made a face immediately. “A trader, sir, is a man only shortly removed from the lowest form of life scuttling about the forest floor. I am a merchant, a freelance proprietor, a good man of business and a man of standing in the world, I daresay.”

“ I see.”

“ I deal in commodities and services. At present, I am going north to arrange for the purchase of some good Canadian wood, as well as some other odds and ends. I have many interests. Upon occasion I even consent to handle a few odd furs, although as I have said, it is mostly a matter of charity, vainglorious charity.”

“ You are going to Canada?”

“ I may.” Van Clynne eyes his drink cautiously, but then lifted the tankard and drained off a good portion.

“ You have the papers that will take you past the patrols?”

“ I have the right to come and go as I please,” said van Clynne haughtily. “I am a businessman. I have rights of passage from both Carleton and Philip Schuyler.”

“ I’m going that way myself. Perhaps you can guide me.”

“ Guide? The road is well-marked.”

“ I’ve never been over it.”

“ Hmmph.” Van Clynne finished off the rest of the ale, then pushed the tankard forward for a refill. “Twenty crowns,” he said after the girl had taken it off to the kitchen.

“ For?”

“ Twenty crowns to take you across the British lines with me. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

“ Perhaps.”

“ Ha! You don’t have the proper papers and are afraid of being apprehended — most likely by the patriots, who would tar and feather your for breakfast.”

Van Clynne quieted as the girl approached with his refill cup. He waited until she had left before speaking again.

“ You’re a Tory, aren’t you?” said the Dutchman under his breath.

“ Actually, I’m on a business trip, as you are,” said Jake smoothly. “My family is in the apothecary trade, and we are looking to buy rattlesnake essence from the Indians to the north. I have the requisite papers.”

“ I quite mistook you, sir,” said van Clynne, rolling his eyeball up and down like a periscope surveying the countryside from the safety of a walled fortress wall. “It will cost thirty crowns to take you north with a story like that. Plus expenses. No paper money, please.”

“ It’s not such a bad story,” said Jake.

“ Ha!” Van Clynne’s laugh momentarily filled the inn before he returned his voice to its strategic softness. “I should like to hear it told at Ticonderoga. The first thing I would do, if I were you, would be to lose that hat. Get something sensible like mine. Beavers are meant to be round.

“ Ten crowns,” said Jake.

“ Thirty-five.”

“ You’re moving in the wrong direction.”

“ I’m Dutch.”

“ I’ll give you fifteen when we reach Montreal.”

“ Five now, and twenty at Crown Point.”

The price for a canoe ride from Albany to Crown Point — before the war — was about five New York pounds, just a bit over what van Clynne was asking for a shorter journey that would not include the amenities or expenses of transportation. The reader may draw his or her own conclusion as to how hard a bargain the Dutchman was driving.