Confusion erupted with the flames. The horses screamed; men fell from their beds shouting. Jake held tight to the neck of his mount as he followed his instincts, plunging toward the barely opened door.
They had just crossed the threshold when a dark shadow leapt at his side. Jake turned to push it away — then realized it was Rose.
" You took your time," she told him curtly, pulling herself up behind him. " I thought I would have to hold off the entire troop."
" You'd have beaten them, I'm sure," yelled Jake as he hunkered down on the horse and headed for the road.
" The Tories may realize something's wrong if I don't make it back to jail quickly," Jake told her when they finally stopped two miles up the road. " We'll have to split up."
" Be off then. I know my way to Robinson's Bridge where the Continentals are camped."
" Old Put's house is in the village of Peekskill," said Jake, slipping off the horse. " It should be obvious from the guards. Remember everything I ' ve told you. And if anyone stops you — "
" I'm not a simpleton. A child could deliver your message successfully. "
" Putnam won't believe a child," said Jake. He reached into his shirt and drew out his Segallas. " Show him this pocket pistol as soon as you arrive. He'll know it's mine. There isn't another one like it in the colonies."
" The general knows you that well? "
" The old man and I have sung a few songs together at Fraunces Tavern. His ' Maggie Lauder ' is quite good." Jake looked down the road. The Tories had not mounted a pursuit, undoubtedly concentrating their efforts on saving the barn and their horses. They seemed to have been successful — the telltale glow such a great fire would produce was notably absent.
" A Dutchman named Claus van Clynne was to meet me on the road tonight and failed to turn up. It's likely he's still with Putnam. You'll know him if you see him — he's as fat as a pregnant sow and complains twice as much. He has a red beard that fills much of his chin and chest besides; he pulls it whenever he thinks over a knotty problem, which is often. He's a good man, though; you can trust him. "
" I doubt I would ever trust a Dutchman."
" Trust no one else," said Jake sternly. " If you do meet up with him, tell him to go to Albany immediately. He'll recognize the gun as well."
" You've sang with him, too? "
" That is an experience almost too terrible to imagine," said Jake. A dim twilight was starting to invade the darkness; he could see her face clearly.
Would she succeed? A great deal depended on her getting to Putnam. Jake would do his best to sabotage the Tory efforts from inside their camp, but the guard must be alerted in case he failed. Her information would aid them greatly, especially as it foretold when the assault would be launched, and warned Putnam to guard Busch's farm, where Jake thought the assault would be launched from.
Freedom often calls upon common folk to play a noble role in Her struggle. Had it not been for the war — had it not been for her fortuitous meeting with Jake — this young woman would have spent her life as a simple housewife, bearing life's commonplace dangers with her quiet courage.
Now she would have to prove herself the equal of Paul Revere's midnight army, the fifty or sixty anonymous men and women whom the silversmith had rallied to save Concord and Lexington. Jake reached up to give her a kiss of encouragement. While he meant to aim for her cheek, she turned her lips toward him; they met in a warm, lingering moment fired by the passion of a shared cause.
" Hurry now," he told her, patting the horse's bare back. " Don't fail me."
" I won't," she said, spurring the steed away.
Chapter Twenty-three
Jake proceeded back to jail at a half-trot; even so, the going took longer than the coming. By the time he arrived it was little more than an hour before dawn.
Along the way, the spy pondered the pending operation to liberate the Tory prisoners. It was bound to put the American soldiers standing guard at risk, and could very well prove fatal to them.
The greater good of protecting the chain must be served, of course, but Lieutenant Colonel Jake Gibbs was not the sort of officer who could make cold calculations of human lives so blithely. He therefore decided to try to find some way of removing the militia guards from harm's way before the assault was launched.
Given the circumstances of his escape, Jake had hopes that whatever guards had been posted would still be sleeping upon his return. This would make his course an easy one — each man could be trussed and trundled off to the woods while still dozing, assuming Jake could find their nap nooks.
Alas, an officer had made the rounds of the watch sometime after Jake's departure. As he cut through the barnyard across from the church, the patriot spy saw that the sentry whom he had landed on was now wide awake and pacing angrily in front of the church. The fellow's previous companion, Sleep, had been replaced by a much younger man shouldering a musket. The pair were grumbling loudly about their lieutenant, complaining about his threats and suspicious nature.
Jake retreated to regroup. His mental processes received a sudden jolt when, turning the corner of the barn, he smacked into another soldier, a short, frailish fellow of fifty-odd years who fell back in surprise.
"Excuse me," said Jake quickly, extending his left hand to help up the poor man — and then smashing him across the face with his right.
He grabbed his musket and hunkered down as he heard footsteps in the road; the distance between the church and barn was only two or three rods, and even the most precursory march could cover the twenty or thirty yards in a few seconds. But the guard did not come around the back, and Jake soon heard the steps walking the other way.
The fact that these militiamen had no set uniform, save the simple white straps crossing their chests and holding up a sack apiece, meant it would be easy enough to impersonate one. Jake took off the older man's straps and bags, then grabbed his powder horn as well. But he decided against stealing his long coat, as it would most likely have left the pallid-looking militiaman to face the rest of his call-up without one. Tying the soldier's hands with a piece of rawhide he found in the sack, Jake pulled off one of the man's boots, intending to gag him with his sock. But the sight of the bare heel and toes peeking out from the torn material moved him to pity, and he replaced the boot and pulled the man to the edge of the woods instead.
As far as Jake could discover creeping around the barn, the only other soldiers in the vicinity were the two fellows in the front of the church. Their patrol was haphazard, serving mostly to vent their emotion at the officer whose scolding had kept them from a good night's sleep. The man Jake had jumped earlier now expressed the opinion that the lieutenant had thrashed him on the head and shoulders before waking him, and cursed the man for denying it.
The men's oaths suggested an easy ploy — Jake would arrive cursing as well, and claim that the lieutenant had ordered him to replace them. But he worried they might not take the bait, and having neglected their duty before, might seek to make up for it now by asking a copious amount of questions. He therefore decided to launch a supplementary plan to draw their attention away — a barn fire. Given that he had recently worked that ploy to advantage at Stoneman's — intentionally or not, one couldn't fuss with the results — the patriot spy felt somewhat confident it would work here.
The only inconvenience was the poor design of the structure, which concentrated all openings at the front of the road, in full view of the soldiers.
Jake waited until both men were turned in the opposite direction and then scampered into the barn through a narrow doorway without being seen.