The Golden Flask

Chapter Three

The cool night air and the rush of excitement at being summoned by General Washington invigorated Jake. He urged his horse southward with the enthusiasm of a boy released from school the day stripers start their river run. Hamilton was right beside him; the two men took advantage of the strong moon and clear night sky to thunder at full speed through the Hudson Valley hills. They reached the small settlement of Coxsackie, some twenty miles below Albany, in barely the time it would take to spell the name. The horses Hamilton had chosen were slender but sturdy beasts, identically colored — roan, with a single white daub at the left eye. Their muscled legs seemed capable of outrunning the wind.

As fast as the horses strode, Jake's mind went quicker. He began to fear what might lie ahead. It was not fear for himself. Until presented with a specific danger, Jake Gibbs was not the type to dwell on contingencies. But he realized that the Revolution had reached a tremulous point. Already, there were rumblings of discontent in the army, and the chronic shortage of funds was becoming acute. While delegations had been sent abroad to seek foreign support, European powers such as France would not back a cause that appeared headed for defeat. Another major setback — the loss of Boston or Philadelphia, or even Albany-could easily end all hope of assistance.

The area Jake and Hamilton rode through had been among the first visited by white men after the continent's fortunate discovery. The Dutch, including members of the van Clynne family, had made this land their own, exploring, farming, and trading for furs. It was still sparsely settled, however, for various reasons beginning with the geography. Hills and mountains rose up in jagged lines from the fiver; between them, all manner of ponds, creeks, and streams flowed in crazy-quilt patterns, now shimmering in the moonlight.

A few miles south of Coxsackie, a stream crossed the roadway to mark a perfect X

on the darkened landscape, and it was here that the two Continental officers stopped to refresh their horses and stretch their own arms and legs.

The spot was idyllic, but the choice was unfortunate, for no sooner had the men slipped off the backs of their mounts than they were warned to stand away, with their hands held out at their sides.

"You will do what I say, or I will kill you," said the voice sharply. "Identify yourselves."

Jake, his barely healed wounds smarting from the bumping they'd been treated to on the ride, stretched his arms stiffly and studied the shadows. A man with a gun was standing to their right.

"Excuse us, sir," said Hamilton brightly. "We are on our way to New Paltz."

"No one travels at night on this road," said the man. Tall, he cast a wedged shadow forward from the woods. His accent was odd, though his words were perfect English. The intonation reminded Jake of the Iroquois, among whom he had just spent several harrowing weeks.

"We are good patriots," answered Hamilton. His service as an artillery officer had not taught him the caution that was second nature to Jake. This was secure patriot country, after all, and his assumption that the men must be must be part of the local militia was logical. "I am Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hamilton, and this is my friend, Colonel Gibbs."

"A pair of colonels," said another voice, this one to their left. There was no mistake about his accent — it was direct from one of London's cruder neighborhoods.

Jake quickly surveyed the nearby woods, looking for a safe line of retreat. His only weapon was his Segallas pocket pistol secreted at his belt. And Hamilton's larger officer's pistol was snug in the holster on the side of his saddle on his horse.

"If you've come to rob us," said Jake, "it will do you no good; we've got no money."

"We're not interested in your money," said the man with the Indian accent, who seemed to be the other's leader. He took a step from the shadows.

"Come now, friends, who is your commander?" said Hamilton, taking a step forward.

Jake groaned. "Alexander," he said as he put his hand to his vest, "I believe my stomach is acting up."

"As well it should," said the leader. "Bring up the light."

A third and then a fourth man emerged from the shadows near the bushes, the last holding a candle lantern. Its flame was hardly enough for anyone to read by, but it gave Jake enough light to see there were no other reinforcements.

"Gentlemen," he said, still feigning illness as he stepped forward, "I must speak to you alone."

"That's an old trick," said the first man who had accosted them, standing to their right. The dim light illuminated white skin, but his forehead and cheek were tattooed with the unmistakable markings of an Iroquois warrior. His head was completely shaven, except for a scalp lock; tied with a large golden feather and brass ring, it hung down the side of his head to his shoulder. His clothes were a curious mixture of European and Indian dress. He wore a black, tailored jacket, but no shirt. A long red ceremonial slash cut a diagonal across his chest. His breeches were leather. In the darkness it was impossible to tell what, if anything, he wore on his feet.

Jake had come across painted whites before. Some called them changelings, men who had been adopted or stolen as youngsters to live among the Indians and converted to their ways. Others called them renegades, race traitors, and worse.

It was difficult to generalize about where such men's loyalties lay. But these had already given themselves away. Jake guessed the white Indian and his escorts must be messengers working between the British northern and southern frontiers; they were too far and too misplaced to be scouts.

"This is not a trick," said Jake. He had used his feigned stomach ailment to put the Segallas into his hand, and now contemplated how best to use its store of bullets. "The name I have used until now is false, a fiction to make travel among these rebels safer. I am Major Doctor Keen, assigned to General Bacon's intelligence service. I am on my way to our lines with valuable information."

Keen's name was unfamiliar to them, but the mention of Black Clay was enough to give the quartet pause. Bacon ran the British intelligence service headquartered in New York City under General Howe. They were ostensibly if indirectly under his command.

He was also a man who must not be crossed in the least way. The Englishmen took a step backward, nearly as a group.

The tattooed man was not impressed. He spat on the ground.

"Egans, let us examine him," suggested the Londoner. "He should bear a token if he is a messenger."

"I did not say I was a messenger," answered Jake, working his way slowly toward the man with the candle lantern. He tried to use the same haughty tone Keen would have used. The spy felt safe in usurping Keen’s identity well as his voice, as he had watched the doctor sink to the bottom of the Mohawk River a week before.

"What are you then?" demanded Egans. Jake's guess about the man's origins was correct — he was an adopted member of the Oneida nation, among whom he had proven his worth and earned the name of a warrior some years before.

"I would not talk to one who pretends to be an Iroquois," said Jake, as savagely as if his mother had been accused of being a whore. The white Indian at first did not react, but his anger quickly grew as Jake began to rattle off a series of curses in pidgin Huron. While these ill-pronounced words represented all he knew of the tongue, still they were of sufficient slander to accomplish Jake's purpose. No matter that the stress and accent were wrong; the hate for the Huron nation's eternal enemies, eaters of people and robbers of skins, was perfectly clear.

"I have spent many weeks among the Huron," Jake told the Englishmen as they strained to hold back the infuriated Egans. He embellished his preposterous tale with a boldness that made it sound plausible. "Working on an alliance. You will help take me to Howe."

"What about him?" said the candle-holder, gesturing toward Hamilton.

"Oh, he's just a convenient rebel," said Jake, walking to him. "We shall take him along as ransom. I doubt he's really a colonel, though," he added. "I should be surprised if he's even a captain."

Hamilton might have objected at this demotion, but he was too busy flying to the ground. This sudden action was dictated by Jake's shout as he upturned the lantern into its bearer's face. In the next instant, he fired the Segallas at the next closest Englishman.

Jake's finger inadvertently nudged both of the gun's small triggers, and thus two poisoned bullets instead of one struck the man in the chest. Cursing, Jake dove at the last Briton, whose pistol discharged as they tumbled backwards.

Egans took a step backward, calmly drawing back the lock on his musket. He caught the bare outline of Hamilton springing to his feet and fired in the young officer's direction, ducking as a projectile flew at him. The missile was a medium-sized rock, which missed Egans's head by a half-foot. Fortunately, his bullet missed Hamilton by the same margin.

Jake and the Englishman fell together into the stream, the Segallas dropping by the wayside. The patriot had just spotted a jagged rock to thrash his man's head against when he felt his leg warm considerably. This sensation was followed by a strong, sharp poke, which the patriot spy recognized only too well — his enemy was endeavoring to stitch his name on Jake's leg, if not his abdomen, with a small but still considerably sharp knife.

The Englishman's head was thrust three times on the stone, each time harder than before, so that with the third blow his brains burst in a gruesome mess from the skull. Jake jumped to his feet as the man's ghost ran from him.

The patriot had just enough time to duck as the candle-bearer charged straight at him. The maneuver sent the man flying face-first into the stream. It also brought Jake within reach of the dead man's discarded knife, which he appropriated before wading after his prey.

While his first approach had ended in a comic flip, the Englishman aimed quickly to redeem himself. He had equipped himself with a hatchet, and took two quick swipes at Jake to halt his advance. Knee-deep in water, the two men faced each other in the moonlight oblivious to all else around them.

Hamilton, meanwhile, had managed to take a few strides for his horse, where his pistol sat waiting. Egans got there first, shoving him aside and grabbing at the saddle holster for the gun. Though of average height, Hamilton could extend himself when enraged, and he was rarely so hot as he was now. He flew headlong at the man, knocking the gun from his hand just as the lock was pulled back. The woods exploded with the misfired shot, but neither Hamilton nor the adopted Oneida was injured. Egans slipped and the pair rolled in the mud beneath the animals' hooves, the horses pulling and yanking at their tied reins.

Fury aside, Egans was more than a match for Hamilton. But Hamilton was persistent. They continued to grapple together, until the white Oneida spotted the fallen pistol a short distance away. Then began a desperate game of leapfrog, each man trying to reach the weapon first.

Meanwhile, Jake and his opponent thrashed back and forth on the creek bed. Twice the American took a feint with his knife, falling back under the weight of a vicious flail from the Englishman's ax. On his third try, Jake's luck seemed to run out — he slipped on the muck and fell backwards in a tumble. In the next instant, the Englishman fell upon him, hand curled back with the heavy hatchet.

The weapon fell aside harmlessly. Jake had employed a simple ruse to take his enemy off his guard, plunging his knife full into his stomach as he charged. He held the hilt firmly as the man first pushed then pulled, triumphant charge turned to desperate retreat.

On his knees in the water, Jake levered the blade through the man's organs, holding him tight with his left hand. No lover's grasp was as sturdy as this death grip; by the time he let the man collapse backwards into the moonlit water, his soul had long since escaped its earthly bounds.

And now Jake turned his attention to the shore where Hamilton was deep into his own hard struggle. Egans's superior skill and strength were showing; he managed to grab the pistol from the dirt and brought it back in a crash across Hamilton's head.

Jake scooped up his Segallas and spun its barrels to fire, but both bullets whizzed wide of his mark. Oblivious, the white Oneida pulled Hamilton's empty pistol back for a second blow as a hammer when Jake crashed into his back. Knocked to the ground, Egans managed to tumble around and spring to his feet, and Jake found himself staring down the barrel of a gun.

It took a moment for him to realize the weapon had already been fired. By that time, Jake was diving to his right, out of aim. The Indian smiled brightly and leapt to the nearby horse.

Jake took a step to give chase, but Hamilton caught him by the shirttail.

"Our mission is too important to risk following him," he said between winded puffs for air. "We've already lost too much time."

"That's quite a little pistol you have there," said Hamilton when he had caught his breath. "It fires four shots?"

"Two, then you have to twist the barrel around to fire two more," said Jake, inspecting the dead men's bodies for papers or other signs of their mission. He found nothing incriminating besides a small collection of coins, which he left in their pockets. "The bullets are small but effective at close range. These were poisoned by an old acquaintance."

The irony encased in the last word escaped Hamilton. The poison had been supplied by one of Jake's most severe enemies — the now-deceased Keen.

"Effective. The men seemed to be farmers."

"That's just their dress. They are British soldiers, except for the one they called Egans."

"Why would a white dress as an Indian?"

"Possibly adopted as a boy. Or simply a renegade. It doesn't make much difference, at the moment."

Under different circumstances, Jake would ride to the nearest militia unit and alert them of Egans's presence. But there was no time to alert anyone or even bury the dead men. He restored his pocket pistol to its hiding place and dragged the bodies to the side of the road. Then he bowed his head.

"Don't tell me you're praying for them," said Hamilton, incredulously. "They're the enemy."

For every hard inch of callus applied to Jake's body by these years of struggle, another part of his inner self had softened. Enemy or not, he could not help but feel remorse at the death of a fellow human being.

Someday, this growing well of sorrow might prevent him from fighting, despite the great justness of his cause. For now, he merely finished his silent memorial and walked to where Hamilton was sitting on his horse. As Egans had made off with the animal Jake had been riding, their remaining horse would have to be pressed into double duty. Fortunately, they were to change mounts only a few miles down the road, and then press on to New Paltz, where another fresh pair awaited.

Jake grabbed hold of Hamilton and hauled himself up behind him. "If you have any influence with this horse," said the spy, squeezing onto the saddle, "ask him to avoid the bumps. My ribs feel as if they've just been broken again."

"I'm afraid we've only just met," said Hamilton, spurring the stallion.