Guns of Liberty (25 page)

Church bells had pealed throughout the city, filling the night air with a melodic message of hope. So while two thirds of the city avoided the streets, the sons and daughters of liberty celebrated and showed General Washington their support. It was all spontaneous as patriots flocked to the center of the city and crowded into favorite taverns, and at every street corner perfect strangers greeted one another and their common spirit of optimism dispelled the gloom of such a rainy night.

So it happened that the one-eyed “parson” standing across from the City Tavern on Walnut Street was greeted time and time again by townspeople and militiamen who passed him on the cobblestone walk. He spoke to them in turn and gave his blessings and wishes for their good health. Then Josiah Meeks tugged his broad-brimmed hat low to hide his features and moved along the block, never really leaving the area of the City Tavern. He was waiting for the man he had followed there. Meeks dug his hands in his pockets, touching the pistol hidden in the folds of his coat.

“I seen him go in,” said a shipping clerk, who paused to peer above the wire frame of his spectacles at the churchman. He noticed Meeks’s broad white collar. “Lutheran, are you?”

“Calvinist, my good fellow,” Meeks replied with forced levity.

“Ah well, as I said, I followed General Washington right into the tavern, him with his gold braid and blue uniform. I toasted his health, right there in front of God and everybody. To a man they raised their tankards right along with me.” The clerk puffed out his chest, enjoying his moment in the presence of greatness.

“May the good Lord bless him,” Meeks said.

“Well, you know, you could go give him your blessing to his face,” the clerk suggested. “But you best hurry. I heard talk that he was going to leave, maybe to home. Although I heard tell he often goes off by himself. But I don’t know where.”

Meeks did. It had been one of the last things Woodbine had told him, how the courtyard of the German Lutheran church was Washington’s favorite place for private reflection. The question was, would the general be foolish enough to seek the solace of his garden tonight? With such momentous events taking place he just might. But if not, then Meeks would have to hope for another opportunity to catch the new commander alone. He might have to strike at Washington’s house, no doubt a suicidal act.

“That’s his phaeton, drawn up in front of the tavern.” The clerk pointed to a carriage across the street. This also was information Meeks knew. Again he held his tongue and wondered if this pale little man would ever cease his prattling.

It had not been the best of times for the major. But he had managed to elude capture and with his disguise had no trouble in losing himself among the people of this city of over thirty-five thousand. He had taken a room at a boarding house in the heart of town and waited and watched for his moment to cut down the new continental commander. It had come as no surprise to him when he heard the news, an hour after the Congress had announced its selection.

Meeks adjusted his stance and pain stabbed from his infected leg to his scalp. The wound needed tending—and soon. But Meeks had more important matters to attend. He might only get one chance at the newly appointed commander. He had to make it count. What happened afterward was of no consequence. After the debacle at the farm, the Englishman was more determined than ever to accomplish his primary mission. He braced himself on his black walnut cane and pulled his black coat about his shoulders to ward off dampness. He waited.

A trio of soldiers sauntered along the street. They wore the blue uniforms of the Virginia Militia and were on hand to protect their illustrious commander. Meeks noticed how they scrutinized everyone standing along the street. Perhaps they were looking for a man with a patch. They wouldn’t find him, for Meeks had replaced the patch with a glass eye. If he kept a narrow gaze and avoided the glare of the soldiers’ lanterns, Meeks could fool them.

As the men approached, Meeks lowered his head and gave the illusion of praying. The soldiers passed him by and Meeks released the breath he had been holding.

The clerk straightened and stepped forward almost into the street as a tall, blue-uniformed figure stepped out through the front door of the tavern and was outlined in the lantern light flooding through the front door of the tavern and was outlined in the lantern light flooding through the doorway.

“It’s him. By heaven, there he is again—General Washington. You mark my words, Parson. This has been a great day. If you hurry I can introduce you. After all, I practically know him now. Come along—” The clerk turned to guide the minister by the arm but found himself reaching for an empty wall. “Well, I never. Such odd fellows, these Calvinists—”

The parson had ridden away on a horse from a nearby hitching post.

Washington’s team waited patiently at the hitching post on Cherry Street in front of the German Lutheran church. Scudding gray clouds clung to the starlight. A gusting breeze wandered among the stone tablets and the trumpet vines and stirred the drooping branches of the willow in the corner of the courtyard.

Josiah Meeks, looking for all the world like he belonged in the shadow of the church, limped away from the front window of the sanctuary and made his way past the pews to the side windows. His bootheels and cane went a-rapping and tapping on the hardwood floor.

Meeks had followed Washington’s carriage past the Carpenter’s Hall. Acting on information gleaned from Woodbine, Meeks had ridden on ahead to the church and hid his horse in a thicket of willows. After breaking a window at the rear of the chapel Meeks had let himself inside. To his great relief, the phaeton arrived bearing its illustrious passenger. Even in the feeble light, Meeks managed to catch a glimpse of white periwig and gold braid on the blue uniform.

Meeks heard the creak of the iron gate and watched the tall, powerfully built Virginian walk to a stone bench and take a seat in the middle of the garden near the roses that provided a flash of color to offset the green vines and gray stone walls.

Meeks wiped the sweat from his eyes and for a moment considered chancing a shot from the window. No, it was better to be sure. He tugged the pistol from his coat pocket and made his way to the door that opened onto the garden. The hinges were well oiled and opened silently. Major Josiah Meeks chose his steps wisely, avoiding the broken twigs and branches that littered the garden path as he approached the Virginian from behind. Leaning on his cane, it did not take long for Meeks to cover the distance, keeping to the shadows, passing the misspelled commandments.

Eight feet from the man on the bench, Meeks steadied himself and aimed his pistol at the general.

“Pray to your God, General Washington. Better yet, go to meet him in person,” Josiah Meeks said, savoring his moment of triumph. The man in the blue coat stiffened, slowly stood, and turned to face the Englishman. With his left hand he removed his tricorn and periwig to reveal a mane of unruly red hair and a face that the major knew only too well. In his right hand he held a pistol, sleek and deadly and aimed at the Englishman’s heart.

“No,” said Daniel McQueen. “You go—and dance with the devil.” The gun in his fist blasted fire.

Josiah Meeks turned pale. A cry sounded from deep in his chest as he stumbled and twisted and fired his gun. The ball went wild and hit the wall across the courtyard. Meeks staggered from the path and trampled a bed of roses as he stumbled toward the vine-covered wall.

I can pull myself over and lose myself in the mist, if I can just reach the wall …
But he had to endure the crushing weight in his chest.
Just endure it.

He sank to his knees and braced himself on a tablet. His vision blurred, then momentarily cleared—and he read the words, all properly spelled,
THOU SHALT NOT KILL
.

He tried to laugh, but his throat was full of blood. He spat and turned to Daniel.

“You—?”

“Yes, me—just a blacksmith.” Daniel tucked his pistol back in his belt.

“Nobody …” Josiah Meeks gasped. He bent forward and his forehead touched the cool ground, and there he died.

Daniel heard a twig crack and the gate creak open, and Washington was there, wrapped in a dark gray cloak. He glanced from Daniel to the Englishman crumpled among the leaves and the flowers.

“It worked, I see. Though I was loath to let you risk your life in my stead,” the general said.

“It was my duty,” Daniel said. “The possible loss of a commander-in-chief far outweighed the loss of a blacksmith.” He removed the blue coat and handed it back to its rightful owner as half a dozen soldiers led by Bill Rutledge filed into the courtyard.

“Not to me, good sir,” Washington said evenly. He fished something shiny from his coat pocket and, taking a knife from the soldier nearest him, carved on it, then flipped it to the man who had saved his life.

Daniel caught the coin and held it up; he recognized it as an English crown,
GW
had been scrawled upon its silver surface.

“For luck,” the general said, putting on the uniform he had passed to Daniel back at the City Tavern.

“Won’t you need it?”

“Not anymore,” George Washington said. The realization had come to him on the ride to the church. “You will be my luck, McQueen. And other men and women like yourself. My luck and the life of our new nation.”

Daniel flipped the silver crown in the air, caught it, and dropped the coin in a buckskin pouch dangling from his belt.

“That’s fine with me. I’ll be there for you.” But right now, he had a past to bury, old wounds to heal, and the woman he loved waiting for him at an inn on the Trenton Road.

“Uh … General, do you reckon as you and this new country of ours could get along without me, just for a few days?” he asked.

“We’ll try.” George Washington clapped Daniel McQueen on the shoulder and walked with him, out of the churchyard and into history.

THE MEDAL
IS A
series of novels that chronicle the exploits of the McQueens, a family whose devotion to the dream of what America can be involves them in our nation’s most turbulent decades. Passing along their own unique “medal of honor” from one generation to the next, the McQueens embody the proud spirit of the country they serve.

GUNS OF LIBERTY
is the beginning of their story.

I write about frontier America and who we are as Americans. I write about the opening of the West and the tragedies and triumphs of those who have gone before. With every landmark paved over to make a new industrial park or shopping mall, we lose a little more of our precious identity. What’s the point of rushing to the future if we lose the richness of where we’ve been? So I’ll continue to tell my tales and spin my yarns and do my part to keep the legends alive and if you find pleasure in them, well my friend, I am satisfied.

(Kerry Newcomb lives in Ft. Worth, Texas, with his wife and two children.)

The McQueen clan, established in the Revolutionary War era by the intrepid Daniel McQueen, will fight for liberty and for American values in war after war. Their lives, and our nation’s history, are chronicled in the Bantam series.

Turn the page to continue reading from the Medal series

July 4, 1811

K
IT MCQUEEN LAUGHED AS
thirty-six inches of watered steel blade missed decapitating him by inches. He ducked, lowered his shoulder, and rolled against his attacker’s legs. The Turkish guard’s momentum carried him up and over the balcony railing. The guard cried out in astonishment and tossed his broad-bladed tulwar aside as he fought to catch a handhold on the railing. But luck had abandoned him, and the captain of Bashara al-Jezzar’s janissaries dropped out of sight and crashed into the spring-fed pool below. Kit heard a splash of water followed by a sickening crunch as the captain’s head slapped against the marble fountain built along one side of the spring.

Kit heard footsteps behind him. He swung around and leveled his pistol at Bill Tibbs, his fellow privateer.

“Please don’t kill me, Christopher.” Tibbs held out his hands in mock supplication.

Kit grinned and shook his head. “It’s tempting,” he said. “But I still might need your help before this night is through.”

There came a hammering on the harem’s bolted doors, and from the hall passageway sounded the savage outcries of the pasha’s guards, who at any moment might break into the room and tear the two infidels limb from limb. Elsewhere in the city port of Derna, the rumble of distant cannon and rifle fire signaled the revolution against the pasha’s rule was still in progress. Fortunately, the insurrection had drawn most of al-Jezzar’s janissaries into the streets.

“Where are the jewels?” Tibbs asked, realizing for the first time his companion was empty-handed.

“I thought you had them.” Alarm washed across Kit’s sun-darkened features.

Tibbs looked horrified. “I took the lead to ensure our escape route while you pilfered the treasure house. Good God, have you lost what we climbed the cliff for?” Tibbs blurted. Then he knew he’d been set up as Kit roared with laughter and pointed toward the wall behind his fellow thief.