“A little golliwog of a man,” a gruff figure with huge calloused hands explained. “But a good heart. I fear he’s come to a woeful end. His big house’s been rented out to the government.”
“The government?” Duncan asked.
“Them water soldiers,” the man muttered as he expertly lifted a crab in his fingers, examining it so closely it appeared he was trying to stare down the creature’s stalky eyes. He glanced up. “Marines, they call ’em.” He gestured with his free hand to a little cove tucked inside a curving point of land, where a familiar boat lay anchored. It was the cutter, one of the two boats that had sailed the day before from Galilee.
“Exactly the parties we want to see,” Woolford ventured.
The waterman, lifting a second crab out of the basket, looked up suspiciously. “Thought ye wanted the printer.”
The mate of the Penelope broke the awkward silence. “Only for a broadside to advertise our sailing schedule. Got to let those all in the little coves know when to expect us, eh?”
“Then wherefore see them marines?”
“Provisions for His Majesty’s navy,” Conawago put in. “They’ve got supply officers roaming all over the bay these days.” He extended a mug of ale to the man. “Now exactly where we would find printer Prindle’s manse?”
The waterman made a rough sketch on a scrap of wood then hesitated as he looked up to hand it to Woolford, noticing Tanaqua. “Folks don’t go near the place these days. Fierce warriors be there, excuse me saying, sir,” he added with an uncertain nod to Tanaqua. “Caused much ado in the town when they arrived in the spring.”
“Warriors?” Conawago asked.
“Fighting savages brought from the north. Getting so womanfolk ’scared of going to church for fear of seeing them.”
Duncan and Tanaqua watched the back of the compound from the night-black river, only their heads above water. No one seemed to have taken notice of the dozen men who had appeared in the dusk, singly and in pairs, to wander the cobbled street. Murdo and two of his men sat on a bench in front of a tavern, Trent and two sailors on the stone step of the steepled church that shared the brick wall of the printer’s compound. The guard at the gate onto the street appeared to be dozing. Duncan gestured Tanaqua forward and moments later they rose up out of the brackish water, using a stack of dories as cover.
Could it be possible the compound was so empty? They had not had the time to reconnoiter as Woolford had wanted. “Not the ranger way, to attack without knowing the enemy’s strength,” the captain had complained as they had studied the buildings through the telescope from one of the skiffs. But he had seen the cold determination in his companion’s eyes. “Fine,” he said to Duncan, and began checking the priming in his pistols. “We’ll just do it the Scottish way. Charge forward without a care in the world.”
“Not entirely,” Duncan had chided. “If it was a true Highland charge we would be screaming like banshees. We will aim for a silent advance, in deference to the rangers.”
The limb from the spreading chestnut of the church grounds hung over the wall, and as Duncan and Tanaqua advanced toward the back of the large house, a shadow dropped from the tree. The guard at the gate showed no reaction as Ononyot stole forward, knocked him unconscious, and dragged him into the shadows. Duncan and Tanaqua sprinted to the nearest window, which was cracked open, and climbed into the kitchen.
They inched through the darkened chamber, then into a dining room with a makeshift table made of planks on trestles. Duncan examined the room. The table could easily seat fifteen. Tanaqua hesitated over several white, curling objects on the sideboard, lifting one to show Duncan. They were collar stocks worn by British marines, slick with pipe clay.
“That cutter is anchored by Crabtown,” Duncan whispered. “Maybe they went back on board.”
But they had not gone back. In the front hall was a row of pegs on which hung eight uniform tunics and eight cartridge bags. Leaning along the opposite wall were muskets. The door on the opposite side of the corridor was closed but light leaked out along the bottom, and now they could hear quiet voices punctuated by exaggerated groans and exclamations. “Spades and diamonds!” someone called out. The marines were playing cards.
Duncan reached into a pouch and extracted Red Jacob’s ranger disc, tossing it to Tanaqua, who nodded and set to work with the guns, using the disc to unscrew the flint from each musket. Duncan lifted away a bag and began stuffing it with the cartridges from the other bags.
Back in the kitchen, he carefully opened the latches of the two doors to reveal a pantry and a cellar stairway. “There is no printing press in this building. Too heavy for the second floor.” He gestured to the squat brick building on the back corner of the compound that he had taken to be a boathouse.
The shutters were closed and the door of the building locked but its transom was open, and before Duncan could react, Tanaqua was in a tree, then on the roof and swinging through the narrow opening to release the latch. The air inside was laden with the scent of ink and wax. Tanaqua quickly lit a lantern and held it out to illuminate a printing press, a desk, and a large working table, below narrow shelves crammed with trays of type. Laid out on the table were three printed sheets with fresh seals affixed to them. The wax on the seals was still soft. “Tax commissions,” Duncan declared, in a low, angry voice. “Made today.”
Tanaqua picked up one of the papers. “I don’t understand. How could a tax commission be issued in Chestertown?”
Duncan held the candle closer, reading the names, written in a hand that was remarkably close to the original commissions. Jonathan Bork, Josiah Randolph, Zebediah Sturgis. They were the names revealed the day Jaho had been killed. You are directed to to deliver all proceeds to Lord Peter Ramsey, agent of the crown, the last line said. The most predictable thing about Ramsey was his insatiable greed. If commissions were stolen the government would not expect revenue collected by the commissioners, and the commissioners would never expect a commission with an official seal to be fraudulent. In the backwater and remote towns of Maryland and Virginia, Ramsey was building his own phantom kingdom.
Duncan began searching the desks. The seal stamp used on the commissions was in the top drawer, along with several blank tax commissions ready to be completed. He set them on the desk, the seal on top of them, and opened more drawers. There was a ledger book with entries for Virginia and Maryland, evidencing tax collections that totaled several hundred pounds. The bottom drawer yielded several pots of ink and a locked wooden box. He extracted his knife and pried it open to find two packs of letters tied with red ribbons.
The red ribbons were used for filing in government offices but these letters were all to Lord Ramsey and Lieutenant Kincaid. On quick review the first stack were all receipts and lists of expenses for Ramsey’s secret tax network. The second contained letters from New York, Philadelphia, Williamsburg, and Charleston. The first of these, an unsigned missive from Johnson Hall, read like a military report on the movement of certain Mohawks and Oneidas known to be closely allied with Sir William Johnson. With a chill Duncan recognized some of the names, all of them members of the ranger corps. A second letter described the movements of Woolford, Red Jacob, and other named runners. Still another letter, in a rough scrawl, reported schedules of trade convoys up and down the Susquehanna. It was signed simply “Bricklin.”
There was a letter to Ramsey from the governor of Massachusetts raging over the disrespect shown by Samuel Adams, who, he haughtily pointed out, preferred the company of low farmers and sailors to that of proper gentlemen, and was rumored to be active in Boston’s insidious committee of correspondence that was trying to foment dissent across colonial borders.