“S top,” Lavien called, and he pulled up on his reins. The men in front and Whippo behind were at enough of a distance that he would have time for at least a brief conversation before they were upon us. We brought our horses to a pause by the side of the road. Following his lead, I quickly tied mine to a tree, and then dashed into the woods behind him.
“That was Duer’s man,” I said. “He was with the whiskey men.”
“I know,” he said, in a breathy low voice as he half ran, keeping his pace both swift and stealthy. “There is a clearing in the woods. I saw it through the trees maybe half a mile back. We’ll make for that spot, keeping out of sight of the road.”
“What if they kill our mounts?”
“There are always more horses,” he said. “Their own, for instance. They won’t need them once they’re dead.”
I did not know why we should want a clearing, of all things, and I did not want to abandon the animals, but here was a situation in which I knew Lavien to be my superior, and I would not argue.
I ran hard. Unused to continuous physical exertion, almost at once I felt a stitch in my side and a burning feeling that rose in my throat and extended to the tip of my tongue. The blood pounded in my ears, and my eyes darted back and forth for any sign of danger, but as near as I could determine we were not yet seen. More than once I almost fell over in exhaustion, but Lavien continued to run hard, and I would not be the one to drag us down. Somehow I found the strength to keep pace-nearly, for I lagged ten or fifteen yards behind-until we came out in the clearing that Lavien had seen from the road.
It was perhaps a fifty-foot circle of flat earth pocked with mounds of dirty snow. There were signs that men had slept here recently-footprints and the bones of a small animal, perhaps a rabbit or a chicken-and a stink that suggested they had not wandered far to use the necessary. Nearly at the center was a small stone circle in which they had made a fire, and there were still pieces of wood there, some but blackened coal, others reasonably fresh.
I stood still, panting and holding my side, which now flared and fired and set forth cannonades of pain.
“Good,” said Lavien in a low voice, as he stooped to examine the stone circle. “This will do. There’s enough wood left to burn well.”
He handed me his pistol, took a tinderbox, and began to relight the fire. “You’ll find powder and balls in my travel bag. Prime the weapons.”
“Are you mad? They’ll see our smoke.”
“Captain, that is what I wish. We haven’t time for evasion. We’ve got to get to Philadelphia, and that means we need to fight them. If we want to do it quickly and without fear of sharpshooters, we must engage them on our terms. We will draw them here.”
I readied the firearms, though I did it slowly and clumsily. My hands shook from the exertion of the chase and the running, and I kept searching the woods for any sign that the whiskey men had found us before we wished them to. There was no point in doing so. These were border men who stalked bears naked and slept in trees for days, waiting to pounce upon deer. If they knew we were here and wished us dead, we would be dead already.
Lavien quickly lit the fire, poking at it until it burned vigorously. He then went over to the nearest tree and broke off several small twigs, which he put upon the blaze.
“They’re moist, and will make the fire produce more smoke.” He gazed about him and took one of the smaller pieces of wood from the fire, a rounded branch not more than a foot long, and narrow enough to easily hold in the hand, and lifted it like a torch. “This way,” he said, gesturing away from the road.
“Why do you want that?” I asked.
“You will see why,” he answered, in a grim tone that suggested confidence but no satisfaction. “We must not let this fire go out.”
I followed him out of the clearing. We moved back several feet, that we might not be seen, or not seen easily, from the vicinity of the fire. He held his torch behind a tree and squatted, his other hand in his bag, his eyes wide and unblinking.
“Let us hope they are as rushed as we are,” he said quietly. “These Westerners are good hunters, as stealthy and deadly in their own way as the Maroons of Surinam.”
“I understand,” I said.
“If we die, we do not get our message to Hamilton.”
“And we’ll be dead. That is undesirable in itself.” I felt tension, urgency, and anxiety for what must come next. It was not precisely fear, though there was fear in it. I am not one of those men who go into battle with nothing but courage in his heart. I felt fear aplenty, but enough other things that it was merely one flavor of the stew.
“I’ve no doubt,” he continued, “that they have good shots among them, and they could pick us off, if they choose, before we even sensed they were near.”
“I said I understand, damn you.”
He grinned at me. “Just making certain.”
He muttered something under his breath. It sounded like a prayer, and it sounded like a foreign language, though I know not know if it was Hebrew or the heathen Maroon tongue.
Then he was silent and there was little else but silence, the silence of the woods in winter when men have come tramping through moments before. There was a rustle of dead branches and birdsong, sporadic but distant. I heard the click of speedy animal claws not far away-perhaps a hearty squirrel that had not slept for the winter or had awoken early.
In a few moments one of our pursuers walked into the clearing. He was an older man, missing an eye, of average height but thin build, with fair hair and pale skin, somewhat blemished with freckles and the scars of smallpox. His clothes looked several sizes too big for him, and he comported himself with the shambling attitude of the habitual drinker.
The one-eyed rebel looked at the fire and then turned back the way he had come and let out a whistle, the kind that sounds precisely like a man trying to sound like a bird. In a moment, Whippo and the third whiskey rebel walked briskly into the clearing. Soon the trio was circling the fire, speaking in low tones, attempting to make sense of it, read some logic into its presence, some indication of our location.
Whippo turned, not precisely toward us but close enough, facing a deep thicket of wood. Hands upon his narrow hips, he called, “I know you’re in there, Saunders. Why not come out and talk things over? You’re taking it all a bit hard. I suppose it’s our own fault, making you think us so ruthless. We’re not violent men, just clever ones. We need not be at odds.”
Lavien looked at me and put a finger to his lips, as though I would need to be told.
“It’s been but a game,” Whippo called out. “You and I being enemies, Saunders-I never felt it. If you knew who we were, and the wrongs we’ve suffered from Hamilton and Duer, you would join with us. We know you’re no aristocrat like those fellows. The violence that’s been done today is our fault. I’ll own it. You come out now, and we’ll talk. We’ll parley. We’ll lay down our weapons.” He squatted to the earth and set his gun upon the hard ground.
I watched him with such intensity that I did not at first see Lavien pull his hand out of the bag. Only when he held his object against his little torch did I see it and understand. It was a ball of cast iron, as shiny as silver, a bit larger than an orange, with a pair of decorative horns molded onto it, as though it were a bull or a devil. From between the horns rose a wick.
It took me a moment to recognize the object, for I had not seen one since the war. It would appear that Lavien had thought to bring with him a grenade.
He held the wick to his torch and let it burn. And then he held it in his hand. My eyes must have registered concern because he looked at the wick and then at the men, to tell me he dared not toss it too soon.