With that, the Dutchman promptly fell off into stone unconsciousness.
Chapter Twenty-one
Providence had provided Jake with a straight and narrow path from the jail to Pine's Bridge, but he wasted little energy rejoicing as he trotted toward his rendezvous with van Clynne. The Dutchman would have been waiting an inordinately long time, undoubtedly filling it with complaints about the unpunctuality of American agents.
That or snoring. Of the two, Jake preferred facing the complaints, though if the squire were snoring there was at least the advantage that any vicious animals in the vicinity would have been driven miles away.
But van Clynne was doing neither. Jake searched the creek side as well as the nearby woods, stumbling and cursing in the dim starlight, his opinion of Dutch reliability suffering a severe reassessment. His anger exploded in a torrent of curses loud and strong enough to wake the dead; fortunately there were no corpses in the vicinity — nor van Clynne either, for had he appeared at that moment he might have been made into one.
This uncharacteristic (and, it must be admitted, somewhat unfair) display of temper soon ran its course, and Jake began plotting his next move. It was already far past midnight; if van Clynne had intended on meeting him he would have arrived hours before. Jake could not risk going to Putnam himself, as his absence when the Tory prisoners woke would raise serious suspicions.
Still, he must find someone to carry what he knew of the plans to General Putnam. Justice Prisco or some member of his family — the plain but patriotic Jane, perhaps — would be perfect, but Prisco's inn was more than ten miles south, too far to walk even if Jake could count on borrowing a horse to get back on.
It took only a few moments more for his thoughts to turn to the girl he had met at nearby Stoneman's farm: Rose McGuiness. A woman would be allowed to pass freely through the countryside, and one as clever — not to mention pretty — as she would have an easy time getting to the general's headquarters at Peekskill. Rose had been prepared to burn down her master's barn in the name of Independence. Surely she would take up an errand such as this.
There was, naturally, one slight complication — there was a good chance the ranger captain as well as the troop had returned there by now. But those were just the sort of difficulties one needed to keep the blood circulating against the cold.
Stoneman's was under a mile away, and Jake ran nearly the entire distance, loosening his vest buttons but otherwise making no concession to the exertion. Despite the faint fight afforded by the new moon, the way was clear enough, and in a short time he had reached the woods near the side of the farm.
His luck now took one of its rare turns against him. The patriot could see from the road that a large fire was burning in the barnyard. He could hear nothing as he snuck closer, but he was so distracted by the fire that he didn't realize there was a ranger sentry guarding the woods until he was almost upon him. Jake threw himself down the instant he made sense of the tall shadow and its bayonet-tipped musket; the man heard the shuffle of brush in the woods and took a few tentative steps forward to investigate.
It was Jake's friend and one-time mentor, Dr. Franklin, who had suggested that the American forces be equipped with Indian bows and arrows, noting that not only were the materials plentiful but the weapons were simple and dependable. Jake could have added another benefit — they were nearly silent, and at a moment such as this an arrow would have been a godsend. As it was, he found himself sprawled forward between a row of skunk cabbage and prickle bushes, barely daring to breathe, his only weapons the Segallas pocket pistol and Wedget's knife, both of which were tucked safely — as far as any adversary was concerned — inside his vest and boot, respectively.
Any movement would give him away. Jake lay on the ground, hoping the shadows were thick enough to guard him from the sentry's vision.
They nearly were. After the man passed by, the patriot spy rose to his feet slowly and drew his knife. But even as his fingers closed around the crude handle, the guard suddenly swung back around, advancing with the speed of a frigate before a hurricane wind. "Who goes there?" demanded the Tory. "It's I," said Jake, hoping the man's vision was as clouded by the deep shadows and brush as his. "I who?" "Caleb Evans," lied Jake, taking a step to his right, away from the guard. "Caleb, where have you been? We're supposed to be rescuing you in the morning."
"I've just escaped from the Americans." Jake took another step as the sentry reached the spot where he had first stood. They were three yards apart, perpendicular to each other.
One leap, and Jake could fall upon him. But the gun might go off, and bring the others.
"Where is Captain Busch?" asked Jake, ducking and moving as silently as possible. He aimed to get behind the man, killing him before he could alert the others with a shout or gunfire.
"We're waiting for him," said the guard, confused and turning to see where his fellow was. "We returned just an hour ago — our day and evening have been a shitten disaster!"
Jake's careful plot was almost undone by his laughter. "Why?" he managed, stifling himself with his arm and moving back, continuing to circle through the brush and trees that separated them. The two men were barely six feet apart. "We never made it to Salem." The sentry twisted again. It would be nearly impossible to get behind him. Jake knelt but made no other noise, deciding to change tactics. The Tory took another step forward.
"All the horses got sick on the road a mile away, and Sergeant Lewis as well. It was hours before they recovered. We had to walk the animals back, and the sergeant is in as foul a mood as ever I've seen. Where the hell are you, Caleb?"
"Right here," said Jake, springing forward. His blade cut a quick, deep hole at the Tory's throat; the only sound the sentry could make was a surprised gasp as his body surrendered its soul.
Jake pried the musket from the dead man's hands and dragged him a few feet deeper into the woods. Taking up the loaded Brown Bess, he crept to the barn, listening to see if the Tories had heard anything. If so, no one stirred — the troopers must have sought sleep as a salve for their disappointments.
For a brief moment, he considered whether it might not be a good idea to lock the door and carry out Rose's earlier design of burning down the building. He dismissed the idea, albeit reluctantly; even if he succeeded in killing the entire group, he might not stop the British attack on the chain.
Jake tucked the musket beneath a bush where he might find it if necessary and sneaked back along the edge of the woods to the house. The rear door was barred against easy entry, as were the windows. Finally he took Wedget's knife and tickled the twelve-pane panel that threw light into the summer kitchen; it shot up quickly and Jake half wondered if Rose had greased it against his approach.
The room he climbed into was so dark it suggested another possibility — an entire company of rangers could have waited in ambush without Jake seeing them. Fortunately, there was but a solitary guard, whose presence Jake detected only by stumbling onto its tail.
The poor kitten yelped and scurried for the hallway, its eyes much better adjusted to the lack of light than Jake's. He followed its lead, proceeding as quietly as possible across the wide floorboards. Stoneman must have been a fine carpenter as well as a rich Tory, for the boards were so well constructed not a single one creaked.
But perhaps he hadn't done the work himself. Stoneman was no simple farmer; while it was too dark to make out his furnishings, his house's size alone spoke of great wealth. Large and rectangular from the outside, on the inside it seemed a series of rooms opening into one another and backing around like an English garden maze. Finally Jake found his way to the hall, which ran along the center of the building and featured two large stairways upward.