Guns of Liberty (22 page)

Daniel had tapped a pair of powder kegs and poured two separate powder trails fanning out from the front of the barn to a distance of about fifteen feet. Each powder trail ended in a keg of gunpowder. Daniel buried the kegs beneath mounds of rocks and splintery logs and pouches of lead shot, anything to make a nasty spray of shrapnel.

While Daniel completed his explosive line of defense, Pepperidge unpacked a crate of Pennsylvania rifles whose octagonal barrels were long as a man was tall and sheathed in stocks of burled walnut. He loaded and primed each weapon. The young patriot worked quickly and efficiently, despite his trembling hands. He carried several of the rifles to the loft, where he and Daniel would be able to fire down on their attackers. He arranged another dozen rifles to either side of the main doors. The ability to shoot without having to stop and reload might well save their lives. If the Tories came at them from every side, the defenders of the barn would have a problem. Two men couldn’t face thirteen at the same time. Pepperidge paused in his work to consider the possibility of such an attack. His hand holding the brass powder flask paused before pouring a charge down the muzzle of the flintlock rifle gripped in his left hand.

Woodbine sensed the misgivings in the lad and hoped to turn them to his advantage.

“Water … please,” Woodbine rasped.

Pepperidge eyed the merchant with a skepticism he always reserved for the wealthy. He walked across to a nearby water barrel and returned with a dipper of cool spring water. He held the dipper to Woodbine’s lips and allowed the loyalist to drink. Water trickled down the man’s chin and spattered his dusty vest and round belly. Woodbine no longer cared about etiquette. He was a desperate man. Any moment, Josiah Meeks would come hurtling down on the farm and burn the buildings to the ground regardless of the fact that Nathaniel Woodbine was being held prisoner.

“There’s still time, my young friend,” the loyalist continued in the gentle, soothing tone one might use to charm an unhappy child. “I have no animosity toward you. No indeed, for I, too, was young once and made mistakes aplenty.”

Pepperidge met the prisoner’s gaze. The words seemed to be sinking in, at least as far as the merchant could tell. He pressed on, hoping to win the youth to his side.

“There is much of the world you haven’t seen, so much you haven’t done. Death is such a pitiful waste … for both of us.” Woodbine wondered if he was reaching the young man. Was that fear in his eyes? “I am a man of means. I will be even more so because of my loyalty to His Majesty. You could share my good fortune. Yes … you. Set me loose and we shall warn the others, and your brave act will be generously rewarded by General Gage himself. I promise it.” Woodbine flashed his most winning smile. “Now, what say you? Are we partners?”

Pepperidge shrugged and finished loading the rifle. He primed the piece; then, with the rifle butt on the ground, he folded his arms and leaned against the barrel.

“I’d rather die poor and free than live rich with the taste of British bootheels on my lips,” he replied. “But you sure talk pretty.” Reaching down, he took the dirty, straw-covered periwig off the ground and shoved it in the bound man’s mouth. Woodbine spat out the wig, his eyes wide and round. His cheeks turned blood red, and for all his lack of size he seemed capable of bursting his bonds.

“You’re going to die. You’re all going to die! Do you hear? Die!”

His voice carried outside, where Daniel was finishing with the powder kegs. He didn’t know if his makeshift mines would kill anyone, but they were bound to be noisy as the devil. He straightened, sensing the approach of the woman across the yard. Daniel frowned in anger and concern. Hope and Eve should have already secured a hiding place in the woods. He had seen Ruth and Agnes with Sister Constance abandon the farm and take the carriage into the forest. They were safe. But these last two Daughters were finding one excuse after another to linger at the farm. They came toward him, carrying blankets draped across their shoulders. Gideon trotted at Hope’s side, his tail wagging in the breezeless heat. It was a good day to take a fishing pole and lie by a creek bank and try not to catch fish. What better way to pass the time than to doze beneath a cloudless sky and let the warm sun seep into tired muscles and leach one’s cares away?

Daniel wiped the sweat from his brow on the sleeve of the shirt he wore open to the waist. Moisture glistened on the red curls covering his chest. He’d tied back his long hair with a strip of leather, but a wayward strand escaped. His hands were bruised and dirty from his labors.

Gideon trotted up to Daniel to receive an affectionate pat on the head and a scratch behind the ears. The mastiff slobbered over Daniel’s outstretched arm and muzzled a pouch dangling from the Scotsman’s belt. Daniel untied the pouch and removed the last strip of jerked venison he’d been living on for the past few days. Gideon hungrily devoured the snack and eyed the pouch for another.

“Gideon,” Sister Hope warned, and the mastiff turned and looked at her, barked, and then trotted off into the barn to see if Pepperidge had any handouts.

“I’ll saddle a couple of horses for you,” Daniel said to the two women.

“No need,” Sister Eve replied. She was big and homely, a woman born for hard work; she had little of the femininity of the others. But she was not without dignity, and she was not without courage. “Hope and I are staying.”

“I don’t understand.” Daniel began to argue, sensing he’d already lost.

“As you said, we have Mr. Woodbine. His presence among us should give your British major pause.”

“I did not explain the entire situation, dear lady,” Daniel said. “I remained by the inn until Meeks and the Tories departed. They took Kate and Loyal Bufkin with them as their prisoners. I hope to buy their freedom with Woodbine. Once I do that, Josiah Meeks will be free to attack.”

“Oh,” said Sister Eve.

“I see,” said Sister Hope.

The two women exchanged glances and then looked back at Daniel.

“We’re staying,” they said.

“But you will not fight,” Daniel protested.

“There are water barrels in the barn,” Sister Hope explained. “We can soak these blankets and fight the flames, leaving you and young Master Pepperidge to man the guns.”

“It is
our
farm,” Sister Eve pointed out, thick arms folded across her chest. That point was irrefutable.

Daniel sighed in resignation. Like Kate, these Daughters of Phoebe were as stubborn as they were brave. Hope and Eve marched past him and into the barn. Pepperidge was leaning against the outside wall of the barn, a rifle cradled in his arm, a bemused expression on his clean-cut face. It was obvious he had overheard Daniel’s failed attempt to change the women’s minds and steer them to safety.

Daniel acknowledged the younger man. On his way into the barn, he paused beside Pepperidge and spoke in a lowered voice. “Phoebe must have been one hell of a woman.”

Pepperidge grinned, and the two men shared a moment of humor. Then Pepperidge’s eyes hardened as he looked beyond Daniel to the road circling Cobb’s Hill. A plume of dust drifted above the treetops. Daniel swung around, saw the dust cloud, and allowed a deadly calm to settle over him. So they had come at last.

“Is it …?” Pepperidge’s voice faded as he barely managed to swallow.

“Josiah Meeks,” Daniel said.

N
OW THAT MEEKS HAD
at last found Daniel McQueen, he wasn’t sure what to do with him. Padraich O’Flynn and the rest of Woodbine’s men had fanned out across the road and into the pasture on either side. Cobb’s Hill lay behind them, and about seventy yards ahead by the barn waited two men, Daniel astride the black mare and Woodbine on the brown mare he had ridden from the inn.

Meeks centered his spyglass on the two and muttered aloud, “Woodbine, you fool.” So much for an undefended barn. There was a wise old adage about such a turn of events, but damn if he could recall it.

“The merchant don’t mean piss to me,” Black Tolbert said. He held one of the many torches the Tory raiders had made along the way. It was a branch two inches thick and a yard long. At one end, dry grass had been tied in a bulb and soaked with whale oil. He glanced at Will Chaney, who nodded in accord.

“Ride them down and burn the place, says I,” Chaney added.

“And cause the death of one of the most influential men in the colonies?” Meeks glanced back at O’Flynn and the other of Woodbine’s men now under Meeks’s command. “The Irishman would be sure to tell the tale. No doubt those other hirelings as well. Such stories might well drive other loyal colonists into the ranks of these rebels.”

“You saying we ought to just ride away?” Tolbert grumbled. “Tails tucked betwixt our legs?”

“I am suggesting, my thickheaded friend, that we return Mr. Woodbine safely to our ranks. McQueen hasn’t the only prisoners.” Meeks turned his horse and walked back along the road until he drew abreast of Kate Bufkin and her brother where they waited under guard. Meeks touched the brim of his tricorn.

“Will you be having a jack of ale, sir?” Loyal asked as if standing in the Hound and Hare rather than sitting a horse on a farm road. Meeks studied Kate’s brother for a moment but made no reply. Obviously Will Chaney’s blow had addled the poor man’s senses. Meeks would have released Loyal except for the fact that his presence seemed to keep Kate in line. The major turned his attention to the woman. Kate Bufkin tried to look more confident than she felt. She had enjoyed seeing Meeks caught off guard at not finding the farm totally undefended. What worried her was that Daniel might be all alone. If that was the case, he was hopelessly outnumbered. She glared at the one-eyed major with all the hatred she could muster.

“Ah yes, but of course. I am the villain of the piece.” Meeks glanced toward the barn. “And that man below some knight in shining armor, the hero of the ballad, battling for love and honor.” The major laughed softly—then his gaze turned cold and hard as steel. “But to me, my girl, you are the villains, you are the traitors to His Majesty, King George. You and your rebellious friends threaten everything I hold most dear, and I will do everything in my power to bring your plans to ruin.” Meeks stiffened in the saddle. “We shall see if Danny boy is willing to bargain for your life.” He shifted his gaze to the two men stationed to either side of the prisoners. “When I signal you, start these two forward.”

The two men held their rifles ready as if daring Kate or her crazed brother to try something. Loyal examined the man to his left, shook his head in dismay. “Blessed be the peacemakers, for they shall see God,” he said. “My son, salvation is at hand. For you. And I bet you’ve a thirst. Folks say mine is the best hard cider. Will you be joining me in a cup?” He held up an empty hand.

“You crazed idiot, shut up now or I’ll lay into you with my rifle,” the man growled.

Loyal shrugged, glanced aside at Kate, and winked. Kate looked at her brother in wonderment. Was all this an act? He’d certainly fooled her. But why? What was Loyal planning now that everyone thought him a helpless, addled fool? Now she was really worried, and she had every right to be.

“What’s happening?” Tim Pepperidge said from the hayloft.

Daniel watched with interest as Josiah Meeks rode away from his command and came alone down the road to the farm. The major covered about half the distance to the barn and then reined in his horse and waited, a solitary figure in the warm afternoon.

A few high, feathery clouds dotted the otherwise barren azure sky. The warmth of the sun poured down, thick as the honey from Sister Agnes’s bees. It stifled sound as it cast a hypnotic spell across the landscape of the afternoon. Daniel stretched, worked the tightness out of his shoulders. It was a pity to waste such a lazy afternoon; there ought to be time for a quick swim in the spring, time to lie upon the bosom of earth and be refreshed. He turned his face to the sunlight, closed his eyes, felt the heat upon his cheeks and forehead. It was a feeling similar to standing at a forge and working the bellows, turning bar iron into a white-hot, malleable substance to be worked with hammer and anvil. His skills, those his father had taught him, had been of little use lately. More so, his self-honed talents for war had been called upon. He missed the honest grime and sweat, the toil of the furnace, the shaping of black iron into useful tools or works of simple beauty. Perhaps one day he would again stand before a forge

“You aren’t so smart now,” Woodbine said smugly.

Daniel, his thoughts shattered, beheld the hapless loyalist with eyes that smoldered like the embers of his imagined forge. Before such a stare, the haughty grin crawled off Woodbine’s face; the man gulped and shuddered.

“If Woodbine tries anything, shoot him down,” Daniel called out to the young rebel in the loft.

“I have my rifle aimed at his head,” Pepperidge’s voice drifted down.

“Be careful. I don’t trust that Englishman, from what I can see of him,” Sister Hope said from the doorway of the barn.

Daniel urged the black mare forward. He rode across the yard, where a red-winged chicken, an escapee from the coop, scratched in the dirt looking for food. At Daniel’s approach, the hen scampered off toward the safety of the barnyard pens. Sheep blissfully grazed in the meadow, oblivious as the dairy cow and rooting hogs to the mounting tension.

Daniel turned onto the farm road and covered the distance to where the British major waited. Meeks’s long arms hung at his side. His brown cloak, worn even on such a hot afternoon, draped loosely over his tall, spare frame. Neither man dismounted; they faced one another on horseback.

“You have been a disappointment to me, Danny boy,” Meeks said.

“Ride away, Major. Leave the girl and her brother and ride back to General Gage. Then both of you go home. This isn’t your country anymore.”

“I counted on your being a practical man,” Meeks continued. “And a loving son … not to risk your father’s life.”

“Maybe I found something more important than his life,” Daniel said. “Or mine.” He wasn’t good at these word games. Already he felt as if he were being led. The Englishman was toying with him, trying to trick him into a rash act that could only end in ruin.