Tall Tail

Monday, September 27, 1784

“Early fall, I think.” John Schuyler inhaled the air, the faint aroma of leaves beginning to turn apparent.

“Autumn,” Charles West corrected him, with one arm around Piglet. “Fall is when you lose your footing.”

John shook his head, smiled. Charles’s upper-class English pronunciation was bad enough, but fall was fall and that was the end of it.

Hauling their steeple behind, they’d crossed over the Potomac at Point of the Rocks, where a good, busy ferry plied its trade. A bit high, the river kept the ferryman and his sons alert. The river was never placid, and it swept along faster when its waters rose. Fortunately, the horses stood quietly, as did the other three passengers. Crossing a major river at sunrise held everyone’s attention as a red, then gold path enticed one. So bright was the sunlight on the river, you felt you could walk on it.

On the Maryland side, carts and riders waited to be ferried over to Virginia. Two hours later, the road was all theirs. Occasionally they’d pass another wagon, rider, or coach, but mostly the men headed north alone.

With their heavy load, the best they could do was twenty miles a day. They didn’t mind, being in no particular hurry. The September days shimmered, the nights were cool, and wayside inns and ordinaries pleased them. The food was good, harvests were coming in. The houses they passed in the small towns boasted zinnias, asters, black-eyed Susans, many kinds of cornflowers, such bright reds, pale to deep yellow, purples, and the last white daisies of the year. On the Virginia side, the Virginia creeper was beginning to turn blood red. On the Maryland side the yellow willows were not yet dropping their leaves, but they would soon enough.

The farther away they moved from the river, the crisper the air smelled. The river odor had covered other scents until about two miles away. Charles noted how different a river’s smell was from the ocean’s. From that long trip across the Atlantic, with its stopover in the Caribbean with troops, Charles West would never forget the salty odor.

Hidden away, Moses remained silent, deeply saddened. If it was clear, they’d pull off the road to eat an apple or bread. Moses would come out, and the three men would sit under a tree, but he rarely spoke. Both John and Charles felt badly for him but at least he was alive.

“Did you see the big Chesapeake Bay during the war?” Charles asked John when they hit the road again.

“We thought your fleet would drop anchor there, disembark. From time to time a frigate, a smaller ship, would sail up, steal provisions or fire cannon. They say the Chesapeake is long and wide, enormous. What I saw, more inland, was big enough. I am surprised your navy didn’t drop anchor there, unload troops.”

“Ah, John, had we dropped anchor there and your boys knew it, they could have bottled up our entire fleet. Big fighting ships such as we have need room and wind.”

John absorbed what his former enemy said. “I know little about naval matters, but I do wonder that your father didn’t buy you a commission in the Navy. Is it not the premier—”

Charles interrupted, something he rarely did. “It is, but my father wanted me in the Army. When he attended Eton many of our admirals were boys there, too, and Father said he never liked a one. A few of my Eton fellows are in the Navy. A few are already commanders. No admirals yet. Not that any of us knew what would happen to us then, although we certainly knew what was expected of us.”

“Which was?” John was curious.

“I would serve, marry well, which is to say marry an heiress. When my brother would succeed to the title, if he wished he could grant me my own land and the proceeds from such. If not, with my imagined wife’s imagined money, we could buy something suitable to our station or live in London. It would have been a morass of intrigue, parties, races, fashion, and then of course we would send our sons to Eton, Harrow, or Winchester, and the cycle would start anew.” Charles waved as they passed a carter hauling casks. “Spirits, I wonder?”

John smiled. “Could be molasses.”

Charles returned to the subject of expectations. “I would have been as interested in architecture as I am now, but to pursue it in England I would have to pretend it was a hobby. Gentlemen don’t become architects.”

“What do they become?”

Charles smiled. “Lackeys to the king, which yields a veritable cornucopia of benefits as well as frustration. I could have won a seat in Parliament. Tory. It is not uncommon for a younger son to enter the church. The higher positions can be quite pleasant and then there is the Army and Navy. Hard on the wives.”

“But you could pick your wife?” John was curious, for Charles rarely spoke of his past.

“Yes, but, John, the herd was thin. She had to be of my background. And she had to have money, hopefully pots of it. It was hoped she would come from a family that produced children without deformity or madness. You’d be surprised at how some families in England have madness, generation after generation. Even if a woman seems quite sane, it might show up later.”

“Pretty?”

“To be sure, that would be an extra benefit.”

“Charles, how could a man stand it?”

“The primary virtue of a woman is her money. You honor your wife, pay her every courtesy, especially in public, and then you keep a mistress or two, and they were pretty.”

“Did your father do that?”

“He did. But I actually think my father kept a mistress because it was expected of him. He was not given to passion.”

“Could the women also take up with a gentleman if she was quiet about it?”

“Some did, but within our class. Never heard of a woman taking a lover from a lower order. I expect it happens, but the thought was that women didn’t take lovers until after two children. Supposedly they live for their children. The illusion is carefully polished.”

John thought it suffocating. “I couldn’t live that way.”

“I couldn’t, either. I stayed here.” Charles smiled broadly. “And look what I found. My Rachel, my beautiful Rachel, who runs to my table to see what I have drawn today. Who makes me laugh. Who listens to my prattle. When Rachel looks at me…” Charles couldn’t find the words.

“Yes,” John simply replied. “When Catherine looks at me she sees a better man than I am, and then I try to become that man.”

“Well put.” Charles then whispered, “It makes Moses’s situation painful to observe, painful to contemplate. If I were separated from Rachel, I would miss her so I would feel like dying. I never knew I could feel this way. John, I didn’t know I had it in me.”

John nodded, then turned to look behind him as they’d heard hoofbeats, coming at a trot. “My God.”

Charles turned to see a grimacing Dennis McComb riding down the road toward them. “John, give me the reins. You’re stronger than I. If he climbs in the cart, climb in with him.”

John reached for the exquisite flintlock pistol wrapped in leather on the seat. Charles’s father had given him the firearm when he entered the service, but when John captured Charles, he took it as the spoils of war. He never gave it back but occasionally would share.

Charles quickly put his hand around John’s wrist. “No. Don’t let him see it.”

Dennis caught up with them, and with no preliminary banter ordered, “Stop the cart. I’ve been tracking you for three days.”

Charles did as he was told. “Whoa, Castor. Whoa, Pollux.”

John climbed down. “Mr. McComb, what’s wrong?”

“You will let me examine that steeple with no interference.” He pulled out his pistol.

“Of course.” John swung himself up on the wagon. He reached out a hand for Dennis, who tied his horse—well, Maureen’s horse—to the back of the cart. Taking John’s hand, he was pulled up.

Dennis waded through the straw. “Lift up the steeple.”

“No need for that. I can open the door. Let me just flip up the latch.” John put his forefinger under the latch, pulled on the door. Pulled again.

“Dammit!” Dennis yanked on the door with his left hand, pistol in his right.

As he did, Moses unlatched it from the inside, Dennis fell backward as Moses charged out of the steeple to land on him, hands around his throat. Dennis fired wide, then fought him off using his pistol as a billy club. Moses had not yet regained his strength. This exertion reopened his wound.

John Schuyler put his hands around Dennis’s throat. So powerful was the man that Dennis was dead in less than a minute. Choked to death with a broken larynx. John threw him on the straw. “Moses, get back in the steeple.” Noticing the bleeding, John said, “We will examine that later. We need to move along before someone else comes along.”

Charles called back, “Push him under the straw. When we find a likely place, we can throw him off.”

Sweating a bit, John jumped down. Slightly loosening the horse’s girth, he climbed up next to Charles, who had the flintlock in his right hand.

“You can put that away now,” John said.

Charles wrapped the flintlock back in the leather.

“I’m glad I didn’t have to fire it. Too much noise. No telling who it would bring.”

“I could dig a big hole,” Piglet offered.

John breathed deeply as Charles clucked to Castor and Pollux. “How did he figure it out?”

“I don’t know, but if Hiram sent him, we will make it to York before anyone else reaches us. If we don’t encounter bad weather or a band of thieves, we will make it.”

“We will, but if Hiram sent him, he will go to Ewing. He will search the farm.” John felt his stomach drop.

“We must rely on the judgment and intelligence of our wives if Hiram did send him.” Charles was as worried as John, but why show it? “My judgment is we can’t let an innocent man die. We’ve brought Moses this far.”

“Yes,” John opined.

They drove another two hours, the sun setting. A grove of thick trees lay up ahead on their right. They’d passed people walking, a few riding but the road had been quiet. Charles turned off toward a grove. He stopped the two gentle Percherons by the side of the road, climbing down.

John got down on his side. Happy to have a pause, the horses closed their eyes.

Back up on the wagon, John pulled out Dennis’s body as if he were a sack of wheat. He threw his body over the side, jumped down. Taking Dennis’s arm while Charles took his legs, they carried the corpse to the grove, swinging him twice to pitch him in.

Walking back to the cart, John wondered, “Maybe we should have gone through his pockets?”

“No. If someone finds him before the buzzards, they’ll clean him out. If Dennis carried anything which might signify that it belonged to him, the thief will be thought the murderer.”

“And his horse?”

“We give it to Bartholomew as payment. No one will travel to York, Pennsylvania, see that horse, and recognize it. I’ve never seen him on that horse. Must be new.”

An hour later, deep twilight, they pulled off at a farmhouse and asked if they could sleep in the barn, feed and water their horses. Charles produced two silver dollars, more than adequate. The farmer took it.

Once in the barn, John unhitched Castor and Pollux, placing them in the small paddock. He filled up wooden water buckets and threw out fragrant hay. He then untacked Dennis’s horse, put the gelding in an adjoining paddock, threw hay, and gave him fresh water.

With the door to the steeple open, Charles said, “Clear.”

Stiffly, Moses stood up, stepped out.

Charles opened his shirt. “Stopped bleeding,” he reported.

He jumped down, took a piece of cloth from the trunk tied to the inside of the wagon, dripped it in water he pumped up, and handed it to Moses, who put it on the wound.

John and Charles wiped down all three horses, patted them on their necks. The men then cleaned the horse collars, as well as the bridle and saddle from Dennis’s horse.

“Ssst.” Charles whistled low, for he spied a swinging lantern coming their way. Moses hurried back into the steeple.

A woman, perhaps in her fifties, the farm wife, carried a basket. “I thought you might be hungry.” She smiled. “Three apples for your horses.”

Charles reached into his pocket, pulling out another coin.

She put out her hand. “No, no, sir. You’ve paid us enough.”

“You are very kind.” Charles smiled.

“We start work at sunup.”

“We will be on our way by then.” Charles smiled again. “You’ve built a sturdy barn.”

She smiled. “My father and his brothers. I believe this barn will be standing when I am long gone.”

“No time soon, I trust.”

“I take your leave.”

Charles bowed slightly. “Good night, madam.”

John called as he walked in from the paddock, saddle over his arm. “Good night.”

Once they no longer saw the flickering lantern, the two climbed into the wagon and sat down with the basket between them.

“Moses.”

Moses stepped out.

“Sit down. We’ve been visited by an angel.” Charles lifted the cover to the basket, and if she wasn’t an angel, she certainly was a good cook. The aroma of sliced ham, corn on the cob, a heavenly apple cobbler, and a tankard of cold tea was shared.

Once they’d eaten, John and Moses scrubbed the plate, the big bowl, the wooden spoons, and the two knives, as well as the tankard, while Charles, retrieving his sketchbook, pulled out a well-wrapped bottle of ink he’d ground himself and a quill, then drew a certificate of thanks. He wanted to put the name of the owners of the farm in the center.

“Fletcher. Wasn’t that the name?” Charles asked.

“Is,” John, now exhausted, replied. “The owner introduced himself as Kevin Fletcher.”

The name, in Charles’s cursive hand, filled the center of the paper, and underneath he added the flourish: Twilight Farm.

—

That morning as the sun rose, the Virginians were already on their way. The carefully washed plate, bowl, tankard had been placed in the basket with the thank-you rolled up.

Kevin Fletcher picked it up, was going to wait until he’d done his barn chores, then thought he’d take it up to his wife.

She opened the basket, pulled out the paper, exclaiming when she saw it. “Kevin, what does it say?”

“ ‘To Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher, thank you for your kindness.’ ” Then he traced the name underneath. “ ‘Of Twilight Farm.’ ”

“How beautiful.” She clasped her hands under her chin.

Her husband smiled. “Not bad.”

—

Two hours down the road, John and Charles took a right fork heading northeast. With luck, they’d be in York inside three days, maybe two.

The gelding walked behind the wagon. John fashioned a rope halter for him so he wouldn’t need to wear a bit.

Charles twisted to check on him. “Seems a fine fellow.”

“We can’t keep calling him Dennis’s horse.”

“We’re heading for York. We could call him Martin Luther.” Charles smiled.

John smiled, too. “Martin will do.”