The Golden Flask (47 page)

"I might have known," he whispered. "Will you never follow my orders?"

"Three boats approaching," she answered. "There are many redcoats in the second and third."

"There's no need for concern," Jake announced
loudly, turning away. "We will be done here quickly."

"What is it?" asked Bauer.

"Nothing. Our soldiers are patrolling below. Begin."

"There is a prohibition against dueling, and we
should obey the law," suggested Lord William, seizing
on the pretext.

But this attempt was brushed away by Bauer, who
started the count himself. "One."

"Redcoats," Alison hissed to Daltoons as the two men began to pace, counting off their steps together.

"Too late to worry about them now," growled Daltoons. "Where the hell have you been? I sent out all my men looking for you."

"With Jake, of course."

"Two."

There is little a duel can be compared to. Stripped of
its haughty speeches and overbearing emotion, it is merely walking and counting, turning and shooting.

When Bauer reached four, Jake became aware of every wound and bruise in his body. His muscles ached with the great fatigue of the night and indeed the entire war. He felt every abuse he had subjected himself to, every deprivation. His right arm and shoulder were especially grieved with their fresh wound; the muscles tensed and it took great effort to turn and present himself at five.

He had sheltered a vague hope that Bauer might accept rules allowing him to fire first, or at least simultaneously; even the bravest man must flinch a bit at the moment of death.

Less than ten yards separated them. Bauer took a breath and pulled the trigger, and Jake felt the air reverberate with the sound of his pistol.

He thought Bauer had missed. Then he felt his chest tightening, and darkness clawing at his eyes. As his tongue thickened in his mouth, he jerked his arm up and just managed to squeeze the trigger.

The ball struck the Tory in the meat of his right shoulder, away from the heart. The impact pushed Bauer's chest back and straightened his head; he smiled, took a labored breath, then collapsed slowly to the ground.

As had Jake, a few yards away.

Though she knew the plan well, Alison rent the air with a terrified scream, a wail that under other circumtances might have woken the dead. In this case, the two men remained crumpled on the hilltop, oblivious to the commotion that suddenly broke around them. Daltoons's men appeared in bright red uniforms, bayonets drawn, charging from the woods under the direction of a medium-sized man whose markings of sergeant were matched by the self-important strut so typical of the species. He ordered his companions about with a haughty snap and a variety of curses, just the thing to direct privates and confuse officers with. "What the hell is this, subjects of the king shooting each other?" said the sergeant, moving toward Daltoons. "Speak, sir."

"You are in the habit of addressing a captain in such
a manner?"

"I will damn well address who I want as I want,"
answered the sergeant tartly. "Declare yourself."

"Captain Mark Daltoons, His Majesty's Sixth Grena
diers." The unit was, of course, an invention, but it
came from the disguised Libertyman with so much pre
tense that a colorful and glorious history was fully im
plied. "I am in charge here."

"Like hell. I have a report of rebel activity, and am to secure the area."

"You are speaking damn saucy to an officer, sergeant," said Daltoons, thinking his subordinate ex
tending the part they had sketched. Alison's sighting
prompted Daltoons to push the episode quicker than
rehearsed.

"This looks to me to be a duel, sir, explicitly prohib
ited. A punishable offense, I might say."

"Talk to me privately, sergeant," said Daltoons. "That is an order."

"I'm not sure you are in a position to order anyone
about," answered the sergeant, who nonetheless retreated a few steps with Daltoons — and was almost cuffed.

"Take Lord William back if he won't go on his own."

"We're letting him go? I thought we were arresting
them."

"Do as I say. The real British are coming. Get Buckmaster the hell out of here. Jake wants him to think his
brother-in-law is dead. Go now, before we're all shot."

The sergeant looked back. "Jesus, they look dead to
me."

"Just go, you turnip-eating fool!"

"I would not use such intemperate language, captain," answered the sergeant.

As the redcoat captain and sergeant were having their tete-a-tete, Lord William walked gravely to his
fallen brother-in-law. Tears had formed in his eyes, and
he shook his head as he bent down to examine the
prostrate body. The red liquid of the ball had done the
job Bebeef had promised, not merely poisoning its vic
tim but splattering him with Death's sanguine signature.

"Damn you, Clayton," said Lord William. "Damn you. He was nothing to die for."

Alison, meanwhile, was hunkered over Jake, sobbing
quite convincingly.

. "My lord, quickly." Daltoons reached down and
lifted the man up. He steered him a few feet away. "Go
back to New York while I deal with this. Have your man row you back. I will have your brother-in-law's
body returned to you as soon as possible. We will in
vent an accident, and I will find a doctor who will sign a
statement covering the death."

"But ..."

Daltoons gave the sergeant a glance, and the man
advanced, putting his hand on Buckmaster's shoulder.

"I would not want a stain to come upon your family
because of this," said Daltoons. "This bastard of a sergeant is not settling for a light price. Go quickly before
he changes his mind. More soldiers are on their way,
and they may bring an officer of higher rank than my
self. The scandal will be unavoidable then."

Lord William hesitated. Truly he had lost so much in
these past few months that a blot on his family's name for dueling — or rather, for having lost a duel — was
nothing.

"Your wife, sir. Go to your wife."

The indecision melted. Lord William nodded, and let himself be directed to the rowboat by the sergeant and his servant.

They were passed on the way by the "surgeon" whom Daltoons had waited on earlier. Huffing and
puffing as he appeared from the waterside, in consider
able agitation and complaining not only of the weather
but the fact that no one in the country knew how to duel properly any more, Claus van Clynne made his very belated appearance at the top of the hillside.

Whereupon he saw his fallen comrade.

The cry that followed could not be described in any
manner that would portray it with the least degree of
accuracy. One might cite the tremendous, pained ex
plosion that falls from a moose's lips when its mate is
felled by a hunter in the wild; it might perchance be
compared to the fabled sad trumpet of an elephant reaching the holy burial ground of its breed. The fa
mous wail of trumpets that brought down Jericho could
be mentioned. Yet none of these sounds would catch the nuances, the depth, the range of the Dutchman's vast and sonorous lament.

Chapter Forty

Wherein, a miracle occurs, and a pageant unfolds.

“
I
f only you had
waited for me,” sobbed van Clynne, pulling at his hair. “Surely I would have saved you. How many times have I plucked you from danger in the past? We were an inseparable pair. What will I do for an assistant now?”

The Dutchman beat his breast
with deep and genu
ine fervor. "Who will recommend me to General
Washington? How will I get my property back?"

"Crocodile tears," said Alison.

"Do not think because you have finally found your
proper clothes that I will allow you to be impertinent,"
said van Clynne. "There was a time when even young
misses showed the proper respect for their elders. This
is what the British have wrought: cynicism among the
young. I am almost glad that you are not alive to see
this sorry state," the Dutchman added, addressing his fallen comrade. "It would be more than your tender
constitution could bear."

"Tender constitution?"

"Do not profane the dead with your remarks, child.
Remember there is an afterlife. You, sir," van Clynne
rose and found Daltoons. "I hold you fully responsible
for this poor man's demise. The Revolution has lost its finest soldier. More harm has been done today to our
cause than at any three battles on the continent."

Daltoons ignored him, hurrying his men to deposit
the seemingly lifeless bodies in the cart hauled by other
assistants and just now appearing from the woods. He
took a rifle and ran to the edge of the bluff overlooking
the shore, in time to see Buckmaster and his servant
push off. Two genuine British boats were just making
shore.

"I would have stopped this duel," wailed van Clynne,
turning back to his fallen comrade. "Had I not been
delayed by the perfidious tides, slow horses, and the
contingencies of, the contingencies — "

"Of breakfast?" shot Alison, borrowing a canteen
from the sergeant who had given Daltoons so much lip.

"He will have a fine burial, as fine a funeral as ever mounted in this land. Washington himself will be a pallbearer, and I right behind him, assuming my grief
subsides."

While van Clynne wove plans for the funeral, Alison
poured water directly into the hole the poisoned bullet
had cut. Jake opened his eyes slowly, then pulled up
with the soft groan of one interrupted from a pleasant
dream.

"He should be taken to Philadelphia immediately,"
van Clynne continued, addressing the heavens with his
upturned eyes. "Given a procession through the city, and then interred in a place where the Congress can
visit his grave every day for inspiration. Near a tavern,
of course."

"Sounds like a lot of trouble," said Jake.

"Oh no, sir, it is but a trifle. I would think Congress
would be happy for the diversion." Van Clynne blinked, sud
denly realizing he was talking to a dead man. Daltoons
caught him as he fell backwards in a faint.

"A drug from Professor Bebeef," Jake explained.
"The antidote is pure water, as Alison has so obligingly
demonstrated. Our friend Bauer will be like this for an
hour. Were the others convinced?"