But now they were at an impasse. He had the gun and they had Katrina.
“Let her go,” he said with as much firmness as he could muster.
“Fuck you!” said the man with the knife. “Give Charley there the gun and you both can leave.”
Patrick almost smiled at the incongruity of the request. Give them the gun? Trust them? Not bloody damn likely. He turned the revolver on Charley, who was inching toward the horses. Had Katrina packed another gun in the bags? Patrick didn’t think so, but he was uncertain.
He gestured to Charley. “Take whatever you want and let the girl go. Then you can leave.”
The man with the knife laughed. “You got it all wrong. We’re taking what we want and the girl. If you’re lucky, you’ll find her later when we’re through fucking her and release her. And don’t wave that goddamn gun around like you’re actually gonna shoot. You won’t take a chance on hitting the bitch.”
The knife man was right. But if Patrick let them leave, then all he could do was follow them and try to get a clear shot before they got too far away. Charley had the horses and was now rummaging through the saddlebags. Shit, Patrick thought, if they ride off and leave me on foot, I’ll never be able to follow, and God help Katrina. He could see by the look on her face as her eyes followed the byplay that she was aware of this as well.
Until the moment the bandits had attacked, the trip from New York had been relatively uneventful. Once they had crossed the Harlem River, it had been almost a pleasant ride in the country with Katrina and the two servants. He had found the young woman-she was younger than he-to be both pleasant and intelligent. In point of fact, she was extremely intelligent. Almost better, he discovered she had a wicked sense of humor. He enjoyed her company, however strange the current circumstances.
Now she stood a good chance of dying a violent, degrading, and painful death if he couldn’t come up with some way of resolving this brutal dilemma.
“Hey,” yelled Charley, “lookit this shit. Pretty boy is a sojer. Lookit the uniforms.”
The knife man looked at the blue uniform held up by Charley. “That true, hero? You a soldier? You gonna fight the Krauts?”
“I am trying to report for duty, yes. Now let her go and let us go on.”
The knife man sneered. “Then why ain’t you wearing the fuckin’ things? Know why? ‘Cause you a deserter!” He laughed. “Now I know what you and your woman are doin’. Shit, you’re runnin’ away. You ain’t gonna do nothin’ about me and Charley ‘cause you’ll get hung for desertin’ if you do.” He found this very funny and laughed loudly.
“I am not a deserter,” Patrick said grimly. “And I will kill you if you don’t let her go.”
The knife man used his other arm to give Katrina’s breast a painful, hard squeeze, which caused her to utter a small scream before she was able to stifle it. “Hero boy, we’re gonna ride out of here on your horses and, when we’re far enough away, we’re gonna take turns ridin’ your other mare.” He thought that witty and laughed again, as did Charley, who by now had the horses over by Katrina and the knife man. “And, like I said, when we’re through we’ll leave her for you to find.” He slid his hand from Katrina’s breast and let it wander down below her belly.
With a scream that came from the bowels of hell, the devil emerged from the bushes by the trail. In this case, Satan took the form of a half-naked woman, her hair singed frizzy, her face red and burned where it wasn’t bruised blue. She hurled herself forward with, instead of a pitchfork, a rifle and a long bayonet.
Charley turned and opened his mouth to say something, but before he could utter a sound, the bayonet entered his throat and came out the back of his neck. He fell to the ground as the rifle did an obscene dance with his body. As the knife man turned to face this new threat, Patrick raced the few steps that separated them and yanked Katrina away before the knife man could gather his shattered wits. Patrick jammed the revolver in the knife man’s side and pulled the trigger twice, with thunderous explosions. The knife man howled and fell to the ground as dead as Charley.
The sudden silence was as shocking as the violence. “Are you all right?” Patrick finally and inanely asked Katrina. She stammered that she was.
“Where’d she come from?” asked Patrick. The apparition was facedown on the ground, her back heaving as she moaned and sobbed, hollering for her father and someone named Cormac.
Katrina knelt beside the woman’s side. “She’s hurt rather badly. She’s very young, only little more than a child.” She put an arm around the sobbing girl’s shoulder and tried to comfort her. After a bit, she succeeded, and the girl calmed down enough to volunteer that her name was Molly and she had no idea where she was.
As Katrina helped Molly fix her clothing into something resembling decency, she also took stock of the girl’s injuries. She determined that neither the burns nor the bruises, although unsightly, were as serious as she had at first thought. Then the girl moved and her torn skirts parted. Katrina saw the additional bruises on her inner thighs and quickly realized what had happened.
“We will have to take her with us,” she said grimly. “She’s in no shape to be left alone.”
Patrick had the rifle and was examining it. “A bright, shiny German Mauser. I wonder how she got it.”
Molly Duggan raised her head and fixed him with a glare of hate through her swollen eyes. “I took it off a German. Hope I killed the fooker.”
6
TEDDY ROOSEVELT PACED nervously. It was nearly midmorning and nothing had been resolved. It was as if President McKinley didn’t want to confront the fact that the nation was at war. This was worse, he thought, than the vacillations that had so delayed America ’s entry into the war with Spain.
And now the oppressed were not Cubans but white-skinned Americans who lived in his home state of New York. At least he had convinced McKinley of the need to call Congress into emergency session. Representatives and senators were converging on the capital with a briskness and a sense of urgency they rarely displayed. Roosevelt ’s contacts on Capitol Hill told him there should be enough for a quorum by early this afternoon.
John Hay entered the president’s office unannounced, carrying a large and official-looking envelope. “Gentlemen, I just received this from the Italian ambassador.”
“Received what?” asked McKinley in a weak voice. “What does Italy have to do with our problems?” At least, Roosevelt mused, he acknowledges that we do have problems.
Hay continued as if the response had been totally adequate and normal. “This is an official message from the German kaiser that was given to the ambassador in Rome several weeks ago. The ambassador is quite embarrassed. He had no idea that what he would be bringing over was such a critical and infamous document. He assures us that he had no wish to be put in such a compromising position, and that his young nation is a friend of the United States’ and not allied with either the kaiser or his aims.”
Roosevelt ’s impatience showed. “John, you’re not negotiating another treaty. Please finish the preamble and get on with it.”
Hay waved the papers. “This is an ultimatum from Germany. It was supposed to arrive here and in our hand no later than the Saturday before the invasion, so the Germans could say we had fair warning. But the fates intervened and the Italian ambassador’s crossing was delayed by faulty engines in the liner he’d taken; therefore, we just received it. Since he had no idea what he was carrying, he also gave it little urgency.”