Peter Loon (36 page)

“What is this?” declared Captain Clayden, as he hobbled out from the guard room and into the torchlight. “What has happened? Edward, what is this?”

“You are more trusting than I, Captain Clayden,” said Kavanagh. “I do beg your pardon. I could let the prisoners go to ship, but I couldn't rely on this mob to behave peaceably because of it. If anything happened to you, I wouldn't have been able to look your family in the face. Peter, however, nearly fooled me into thinking we could thwart these fellows on the road.”

“Good Heavens! This isn't right at all!” declared Captain Clayden. “Where's Mr. Leach?”

“Not right, indeed!” sputtered Captain McQuigg. Wild-eyed, his horse danced nervously in the small space between his militia and the Liberty Men. “What
about
this Leach?” demanded Captain McQuigg. “What do you mean, Edward, about prisoners taking ship?”

“They're gone, sir,” said Kavanagh. “They've been released and are taking leave for the south seas.”

“How is this possible?” shouted Captain McQuigg. “Captain Clayden, I demand an explanation!”

Captain Clayden limped further from the door and the mob stepped aside so that he might approach his mounted counterpart. “As there was evidence, Captain McQuigg,” said Captain Clayden, “that some of the prisoners had been arrested under false pretenses, it was decided that they should all be released.”

“Why, it is illegal!”

“But it seemed like justice, sir.”

“The sheriff will be wild!”

“The sheriff assisted Mr. Leach in taking them to the wharf.”

Captain McQuigg looked to have a hundred more declarations and questions, and his face was more red than could be explained by the torchlight. His whole form shook with wrath and emotion. “Edward!” he bellowed. “Why wasn't I told of this?”

“You would have tried to stop us, sir,” said Mr. Kavanagh, and with a degree of respect that the words themselves could not convey.

For a moment, nothing more was said. The torches crackled. The horses shifted feet. Men on both sides relaxed their guard. “It is the only wise thing you've said all night,” declared Captain McQuigg to Edward Kavanagh. The old man swore mightily under his breath.

Nathan Barrow had, by this time, wormed his way behind some of his men, and he spoke in something more than a whisper, “Now is the time to start the war. Shoot that old devil from his saddle!”

Those who could not hear the words understood their essence, and there were several of the lay preacher's men who looked ready to comply.

“
I'll
shoot the first man that offers to,” said Manasseh Cutts before Edward Kavanagh had the opportunity. Crispin Moss put punctuation to his friend's words by looming at Manasseh's side.

Kavanagh, whose hands were empty of anything but reins, slid down from his mount as a token of peaceful intention. Peter would not have credited the man with such action; he looked from the dismounted horseman to Crispin Moss and thought the men were like the dark and light sides of the same person–both of them tall and broad shouldered, both of them quick to active purpose
and good
humor.

“If there is any question of justice,” said Captain McQuigg, speaking to the mob before him, with more reason than anger, “you will certainly be beyond it, were you to kill me.”

“There wouldn't be a man of you left to testify against us,” answered Nathan Barrow. “You are completely surrounded.”

The lay preacher was first among them to sense the gathering of Liberty Men below. Drawn by the torchlight, the unexpected movement of the mob upon the hill, and finally by Captain McQuigg's single pistol shot, the companies that had been left to guard the approaches to jail hill had risen from all quarters and left their posts to spread themselves in a regimental line, just beyond the province of light. Peter could see them, barely limned against silvered fields, only shadows in the moonglow.

“There is not a house below us,” said Captain McQuigg evenly, “but has a man or men waiting with musket primed. You'll face the whole town, and finally the whole district for such infamy.” He was undaunted, though he might be the first to fall, and Peter felt a fierce admiration for the old fellow.

“We'll hold the high ground,” came a new voice, and Peter saw Joshua Cargin raise his contentious head. Just beyond Cargin was an old man with a musket leveled and a dog beside him, and Peter thought every moment of fear that he had experienced that night had redoubled itself and found home in his heart.

The sound of horses, and then a voice came from below the line of men on the shadowed slope of the hill. Three riders materialized into the torchlight, and perhaps the greatest surprise of all was to see the sheriff of the county Edmund Bridge, Mr. Pelligue, and Parson Leach riding together.

Parson Leach drew up between Captain McQuigg and the Liberty Men. Edward Kavanagh, who had been standing before the old captain, stepped around Mars. Sheriff Bridge also moved into the crowd of horsemen. “Thank you, Captain McQuigg,” he said, “but I have matters in hand, now.”

“I would respectfully disagree, sir,” said Captain McQuigg.

The sheriff did not reply. Mr. Pelligue stepped down from his horse and nodded to Manasseh. “No,” said Mr. Pelligue, in answer to the unasked question, “I didn't know about this till moments ago myself.”

An unusual stalemate had formed in the jailyard, so that there seemed only the one question among them, and that was who dared turn their back and leave the first.

“It's been a useless tramp,” said someone among the Liberty Men.

“You are all alive,” said Parson Leach. He leaned forward wearily in his saddle. “And that is compensation to me, at least.” Mars, too, looked like many miles, and the two of them seemed ready to fall in their traces. The parson's long face was touched with his typical humor, however, and it was hard to feel warlike watching him. “Your task is proven,” he said to the Liberty Men. “Your fellows are free and you have demonstrated your determination and your numbers. Praise God you haven't paid a sterner toll for the night's journey.”

“This is
your
devil's design from the start!” declared Nathan Barrow. “So let
you
pay the toll!” The man was struggling with something beneath his coat, and several things seemed to happen in the same instant: A pistol came out in Barrow's hand, the weapon erupted in a charge of flame, and Parson Leach was jerked from Mars's back like a lifeless doll.

Barrow's own man, beside him, was the first to act, for he hauled his musket back and struck his chief in the face with the butt of it. The pistol flew from Barrow's hand as his head snapped back, and for good measure, the man drove the butt of the musket into Barrow's chin before Barrow crumpled at his feet.

A great shout went up–a mix of anger and dismay that Peter hardly heard for the roar in his own ears. He pushed several men aside, rushing toward the fallen parson, and scrambled around Mars to find the tall man rising to his feet and thanking Edward Kavanagh. The sound of Barrow's pistol shot echoed off the buildings below them, and from the further shore of the Sheepscott.

“I'm glad the stitches in your coat held,” said the brawny Kavanagh with a smile of relief, but his face was pale and he still clutched at the tail end of Parson Leach's blue wool garment, as if he might be called upon to pull the man from danger again.

NO MAN'S MOTIVE FOR WAR OR REBELLION IS WHOLLY LIKE AN
other's, and every man returns home at his own pace, with his own sense of loss or victory. The Liberty Men who dispersed to their farms and their forests from Wiscasset were more of one mind than most veterans of conflict, for they were all a little confounded by the night and the machinations of such amicable men as Parson Leach, Captain Clayden, and Edward Kavanagh. It is much easier to fathom “stand to and fire at will.”

They were weary from their tramp and their emotions. Some trudged home without rest, some lay down in the forest and slept half the next day. Some went to New Milford to bring the news, hoping that in telling it, they might come to understand what it meant. Some scoffed at the entire business and went home. One or two scoffed at the entire business and pulled up stakes for deeper wilderness. At least one scoffed at the entire business and paid the local Proprietor what was demanded for the land he had settled, even if he didn't believe he owed it.

Nathan Barrow's unconscious form was arrested for attempting to murder Parson Leach. None of his followers objected. He woke the next morning in jail and asked for a drink.

Peter was offered the tavern floor to sleep on at the Whittier. Elspeth and her father slept on the other side of the room. Peter woke to an early light and considered the young woman. She was wrapped in a shawl and looked like a child in her sleep, her hair spilled over her brother's coat, which she had used for a pillow. Her father lay on his back and snored.

Parson Leach came in soon after Peter was awake. He and Captain Clayden had slept at the sheriffs and the parson was now going to escort the old fellow home. Peter half-wished to go with him and see Nora Tillage, or the young Clayden women. He walked out onto the tavern green with Parson Leach and nodded uncertainly to Captain Clayden.

“I beg your pardon, Captain Clayden,” he said, with his head down, “for wearing your son's clothes in a pursuit against your own.”

“I believe last night proved that our pursuits are not so different, Mr. Loon,” said the old fellow graciously.

“It proved that Peter should have listened to me and stayed in New Milford,” said the parson, though without real reprimand in his voice.

“I will remember,” said Captain Clayden, “that Peter's was the first voice through the door and that he spoke of peaceable means, and that he was the first
man
through the door and carried no weapon.” He gave Peter his hand, which was more than Peter felt he deserved. “You were right in escorting Mr. Gray's daughter.”

The parson must have understood that Peter was ready to qualify this praise, for he cleared his throat and mounted Mars. “You can come with us to Newcastle if you like, Peter,” he said, “if you still want to search for your uncle.”

“I should go home, I think, and see how my family fares. They buried my father the other day. But I have to return Beam.”

“Ride home, Peter,” said Captain Clayden. “Bring her back, or send her home when chance offers.” One of the tavern keeper's sons helped the old man onto his horse.

“But your son's clothes,” said Peter.

Captain Clayden waved this off. “Emily thinks you should sign on to her father's ship when next he's home.”

“God speed, Peter Loon,” said Parson Leach and the two men trotted from the tavern yard.

Peter watched them disappear past the three elms and around the corner of the Whittier. He described half a circle doing this and found himself regarding Elspeth Gray, whose own wavery image watched him from a tavern window.