The Iron Chain (39 page)

General Putnam is among the most esteemed of American leaders, and certainly one of the oldest; while he appeared as something of a rooster strutting around the barnyard barking orders, still his commands were received with the alacrity one expects from soldiers responding out of respect for the man as well as the rank.

Except from the Connecticut men, who looked to their own general for direction.

"Begging your pardon, sir," said one of the privates, pointing to their adopted leader. "But General van Clynne has taken us under his command, and as he is of captain-general rank with a surfeit of clusters, we answer to him, sir."

"Captain-general? Clusters?" scowled Old Put. "When did Congress establish such a ridiculous rank?"

"It is a hereditary title from the Dutch, sir," said van Clynne quickly, "one which I seldom invoke except under the most dire circumstances, with which we were faced."

The Dutchman stepped forward and reached up to doff his hat. As it had been blown off his head, he came up empty-handed, but bowed nonetheless.

"What the hell are you talking about?" demanded Putnam.

"Surely Miss McGuiness told you about me when she arrived," said van Clynne. "She is a stubborn young woman, sir, but you must make allowances for her; her heart is that of a true patriot."

The general could not have realized how grave a mistake the question was, for it invited the Dutchman to launch into a full narrative of the night's adventures. Despite Old Put's constant exhortations to get to the point, van Clynne embroidered a lengthy tale of destruction and woe — with himself, naturally, at the center of it.

The general, tiring of the discourse and suspicious of the Dutchman, would have had him slapped in irons, except for the mention of Jake Gibbs's name.

"Jake is involved in this?"

"After a fashion, sir, after a fashion. We are a team, as it were."

Putnam was spared further details by the timely arrival of Jane, who rode astride the bareback horse much as a young lad would have. She dismounted in a flash, her heavy woolen cloak swirling around to reveal her homespun skirts — all soaked as badly as any shirt of Job's.

The two dear hearts came together with a crash that rivaled the recent explosion. General Putnam was about to take the opportunity to attend to more important matters, when Jane broke free of her lover's grasp and stopped him.

"General, please — I've ridden nearly the whole night to find you. A British spy has taken a young servant girl named Rose McGuiness hostage. She must be rescued — Claus, the man's name is Dr. Keen; he says you're to come to Marshad's cottage without any soldiers, or he'll kill Rose straight away. And then he'll start in on Uncle."

While van Clynne was confronting this new twist, his erstwhile partner was basking in the sweet calm that victory brings. Triumph makes all manner of injuries light nuisances, easily dismissed. The river was illuminated by fresh watch fires across the way; overhead, the stars fought through the fading clouds and glittered with all their might. Bear Mountain seemed to hunch his shoulders and proclaim his majesty, the Hudson lapping at his feet with a gentle snicker.

Jake might have been forgiven if, as he sat cross-legged, still half in the water, he thought this glorious show of Nature was all for his benefit. His exertions had left him near drunk with the afterglow of his body's fiery humors. The knife wound in his hip had stopped bleeding; his other wounds and bruises drifted away like memories of lost bets.

Some hoarse shouts nearby quickly sobered him. The patrolling whaleboat had been literally blown to splinters, and its soldiers were now clinging to the rocking chain as if it were a life raft.

"Make your way towards me," shouted Jake, gingerly going out to help them. The British sailor and one of their comrades had been lost in the confusion, but otherwise their injuries were light.

Jake pointed them back to shore and helped the stragglers. As the way became easier, his thoughts turned to his mission to Albany; he must leave tonight if he were to reach General Schuyler before his deadline. He also thought of the woman he had left there some weeks before, Sarah Thomas. She would welcome him gladly when he arrived.

Distracted by her image in his brain, he did not notice the man with the rifle leveled at the shivering regulars who had reached shore ahead of him.

"Stand back," said the old man, his shoulders against the rocky crag on the narrow bank. "Stand back or I'll kill you all."

They outnumbered him, and if they rushed him would surely overcome him. The rifle was loaded though, and even in the dim light he surely would not miss hitting someone.

"We've come to try and help you find your daughter," offered Jake. "We heard she was lost."

"Annie? Yes, I cannot seem to find her. She and John have been missing since supper. It's John — the boy always gets into trouble. He is a rebellious scoundrel — if I told him to walk he would run."

"Mr. Busch, please put the gun down," said Jake, taking a step forward. His injured feet made him wince with pain, but at least his eye had opened and he could see normally. "It'll only scare your daughter when we find her."

The old man looked down at the weapon in his hands, as if confused at how it had gotten there. His attention was turned long enough for Jake to spring at him. But the gun was surrendered meekly.

The old man's face erupted with tears at the fate of his family, whether for the first or last time, neither Jake nor anyone else could tell.

In his defense, Van Clynne felt it was only fair to point out to sweet Jane that had this Rose followed his directions as to the proper path to take, she would not be in her current predicament. “This is what comes of questioning a Dutchman's counsel, my pumpkin."

"Claus, you have to rescue Rose," said Jane. "You must."

"Well, yes, I will do so without fail," said the Dutchman, who in truth was as interested in liberating his coins as the girl. His opinion of Rose had shifted slightly because she was a friend of Jane's — but only slightly. "If the general will lend me my troop back."

"Granted," said Putnam, who was prepared to do much more to get the squire out of his powdered white hair.

"But Dr. Keen said you must come alone — "

"Tut, tut, my dear; one doesn't go into the lion's den unarmed. Undoubtedly our doctor friend has some surprise in store for me, some stupendous-sized leech which he plans to twirl around my head. My men here will sneak through the brush and wait until I have flushed out his plot. It will undoubtedly be clever," added the Dutchman as an aside, "but the inherent limitations of the British intellect will leave a large gap for us to proceed through."

Jake and the soldiers helped the grief-stricken old Mr. Busch up to his farm, comforting him as best they could with the aid of some medicinal rum kept by the fireplace. The lieutenant colonel had just finished wrapping his wounds in bandages and taken a sip of the rum himself when there was a sharp knock at the door. One of the soldiers answered it to discover two men sent by General Putnam.

"We were told to fish Colonel Gibbs from the river if necessary," said one of the privates, "and return him before the general is drowned by verbiage."

"Do you understand those orders, sir?" asked the other, whose face betrayed the fact that he himself did not.

"Oh, absolutely," said Jake, laughing. "It means the general has made the acquaintanceship of my good friend, Claus van Clynne."

Jake borrowed some shoes and Mr. Busch's horse to ride to the house on the Fishkill road where the general had made his temporary headquarters. Along the way he found Private Martin, who claimed to have been blown there by the bomb blast. While that seemed highly unlikely, the Connecticut private could not remember what had happened if not that. In fact, he could not remember much of anything at all, including his adventure on the river or his brief sojourn under the command of "General" van Clynne.

Nor did he remember having been among the privates that Old Put had routed from a New York City wine cellar on the eve of the British invasion a year before.

"I'm sure I would remember that, sir," muttered the distressed soldier as General Putnam questioned him about the incident. In Jake's opinion, that was the one thing he might well remember, his profuse headshaking to the contrary.

"Well, what do you remember?" demanded the general.

"Being inoculated against the pox, sir."

At that, Old Put turned several shades of color. "Get back to the damn hospital then. Get!" The general turned to Jake as Martin vanished through the door. "These damn inoculations. Half my army is sick, and the other half is guarding the damn fools."

"I sent him off with some men to look after a kidnapping. Frankly, I was glad to get rid of him. This van Clynne — he claimed to be your partner."

"He has served lately as my assistant," said Jake. "He has his own ideas about his importance. He has saved my life now on more than one occasion, though I'm not sure I would admit it in his presence."

"I doubt he would give you the chance," said the general.

_{-Chapter Forty-seven-}

Wherein, the despicable Dr. Keen makes one last display
of his prodigious talents, to Squire van Clynne's great
distress.

V
an Clynne's plan
for foiling Dr. Keen was a classic snare maneuver, during which he would offer himself as temporary bait while his Connecticut soldiers closed the noose. After positioning his men in the woods near the cottage, he snuck back to the roadway and prepared to proceed toward the cottage.

At this point, sweet Jane threatened to become a barrier to the plan, wanting to join him. Van Clynne had to turn his considerable powers of persuasion on her, assuring her that in the first place he was well armed — the red ruby dirk was hidden up his sleeve and two tomahawks were secreted at the sides of his coat — and in the second, she would perform a much more useful function by remaining here.

"Doing what?"

"Well, you shall be our reserve," proclaimed the Dutchman. "Ready to swoop in like winged Victory herself at the moment of denouement."

"That is not a job," said Jane. "Rose is my friend and I want to help rescue her. I can and I shall."

Van Clynne recognized the strong bent in her eyes and knew it was as useless to argue with her as to rant against the lingering thunder.

Not that he wouldn't try either.

"Well, then," said the Dutchman, "you must sneak into the coach and attempt to retrieve my coins, if that's where they are. You can already consider them part of our joyful estate. As the wedding proverb says, 'What's yours is yours and what's mine is yours,' or something along those lines."

The squire was in fact endeavoring to send her from harm's way, as he supposed the coach would be far from the line of fire. Jane nodded at his advice that she must postpone her advance until he had given her a clear signal—a Mohawk war whoop. He demonstrated once to make sure she knew the sound.

"That's not a Mohawk call," she objected. "It's Huron."

Van Clynne frowned and made a note to instruct her on her future duties as faithful wife when he found himself at greater leisure.

Had Keen not already detected the Dutchman's presence thanks to an elaborate system of strings placed further north on the highway, the war whoop would have fully alerted him. In any event, he was well prepared when van Clynne rode slowly down the road to the ruined cottage, glanced around the environs, and then entered the small building. The fire had taken away three-quarters of the roof and a good portion of the rear wall, but otherwise it was reasonably intact, if sooty.

Fully expecting a trap, the Dutchman examined the shadows carefully. Then he set a candle on the stump of a stool before the fireplace and lit its wick with a bit of flint. The rain had ceased, and the stars were making an effort to contribute some illumination, but even so the ruins were dark. Still, there was more than enough light to reveal van Clynne's purses on a charred table in the center of the room.

The Dutchman's joy at discovering that they contained all of his coins was interrupted by Keen's voice behind him.

"And so, Mr. Clynne, we meet again."

"The van is an important part of my name," snapped the Dutchman, tucking the money inside his coat as he turned around. Even the dim candle before the hearth had enough light to reflect off the polished barrel of the weapon Keen held — an ancient though apparently operative matchlock musket, whose smoldering fuse hung at its side. "You should not like being called Dr. 'En, I suppose."