The Rebels: The Kent Family Chronicles (54 page)

For a moment he almost seemed to see wispy, leather-skinned Angus Fletcher in George’s place. Angus shaking his head.
The devil’s blood will tell
—

He started to pull the little black-bound testament from the breast pocket of his hunting shirt, ready to fling the book at that tormenting image. But the mind-phantom disappeared. Only George remained, condemning him with austere silence.

The violin fell quiet. Sheep bleated. The river lapped the flatboat hulls with a tranquil rhythm.

“What the hell am I supposed to do, George?” Judson asked finally. “I’ve left everything behind. Everything!”

“I don’t know,” George admitted, weary-sounding now. “Perhaps you can find work here in the settlement.”

“Work!
Christ, I don’t know how to do any work! But I can fight—”

“Not in the forest. Not on the Illinois prairie. Not craving spirits so terribly that it hampers your judgment, ruins your stamina, makes you worthless—” Abruptly, George bit off the loud reply. He went on more moderately, “If I could make the decision as your friend, I would. But it’s not possible any longer. All I can do is invite you aboard my boat—” He indicated the dark vessel at the outer end of the three. “—pour you one more rum—”

“Now that the damage is done, eh?”

George winced at the bitterness. Softly:

“No, just—just for old times’ sake. I’ll loan you a little money if you need it, but—that’s the end. Come on, let’s not quarrel any more. The decision’s made. I’d feel much better if you’d enjoy the hospitality of the boat for a bit—”

Ears ringing, eyes blurred, Judson still caught the guilt in George’s voice.

He tried to hate his friend. Tried to summon wrathful words again, but he was unable.
He
was the guilty one.
He
was the betrayer. Of everyone including himself.

A dreadful weight seemed to push down on his shoulders. Something George had said a moment ago rang through his mind, almost like a bell tolling for his own life:

But that’s the end.

Lazarus, reborn for a few hours, had lacked the fortitude to survive. Angus Fletcher was right after all. Judson betrayed and destroyed at every turn. Never quite strong enough; never quite knowing why—

Well, at least there was the promise of a drink.

“All right, I’ll accept the offer,” Judson said with a wan smile. He and his tall friend started along the landing.

George moved with his customary silent grace. The bull bellowed and tossed its horns as they passed. Judson gazed at the swift-flowing river, thinking of the ruinous tide that coursed through him. That tide had swept him to a final chance—then, just as quickly, swept the chance from his grasp.

Uncomfortable in the awkward situation, George tried to make conversation:

“These are interesting craft, you’ll find. They’re oneway boats. Designed to be torn apart again, and the lumber used for shelters once we reach the falls of the Oh—”

Judson barely heard his friend hesitate. He was ready to turn and flee, his guilt deepening moment by moment. He decided to tell George he’d changed his mind; intended to make his way back into the settlement at once. Just as he was about to speak, he grew aware of a peculiar tension in his friend’s stance.

George had stopped talking—and walking—just where the square stern of his flatboat bumped gently against the landing pilings. The moon burned in the pupils of George’s narrowing eyes as he raised a finger to keep Judson silent.

Wrenched from the morass of his own misery, Judson followed George’s pointing hand. Up the plank sidewalls, past a latched wooden window to the slightly arched roof. Judson sucked in a breath. The trap lay back; open.

And, running to it from the far edge of the roof, was a track of small, glistening puddles of water.

George bent close to Judson’s ear:

“Someone’s inside. Crawled up from the other rail—from the river—”

“Who would it be?”

“No idea. But I keep my public orders aboard, locked in a strong box. I’ve wondered if some Tory sympathizer might try to steal them. The other set’s here—” He touched the belly of his hunting shirt. Then he tapped Judson’s rifle:

“Is that primed?”

“Yes.”

“All right, look sharp—”

George sidled near the rail of the moored boat, one hand darting down to his boot. The blade of his long knife flashed as he raised it waist high.

“I don’t care to jump through the trap and surprise our visitors in the dark,” he whispered. “But maybe we can flush them out into the light—”

As Judson lifted his rifle with sweaty hands, George leaned forward and started hammering a fist on the sidewall of the flatboat.

The moment George stopped thumping, he heard sounds inside. Quick, light footsteps; then an oath, as something banged the deck planks.

“After my strong box, all right—” George began.

Hands shot from the black square of the open trap. A tall-crowned hat with a flop brim seemed to levitate swiftly into the moonlight. By the time the lithe intruder hauled himself onto the roof, Judson recognized him.

It was the lounger from outside Semple’s Tavern. The man who had concealed his hands. Judson thought he understood why—

The intruder’s hat blew off as he scrambled for the river side of the flatboat. Judson had a swift impression of a knife blade glittering in one brown fist, and metal-work shining on the pistol in the man’s belt. George Clark leaped up onto the rail, then to the roof.

Judson jammed his rifle to his shoulder. He had a clear shot at the moon-silhouetted stranger. He steadied his grip, triggered the weapon.

An explosion—a dull glare of orange—

Then the aftermath of silence, signaling a flash in the pan.
Damn!
Either he’d lost most of his priming, or it had gotten damp—

“Stop!” George yelled, starting across the flatboat roof. He was between Judson and the intruder now, so that even with another weapon ready, no further shots would have been possible. Judson put a knee on the flatboat rail, stretched out his bandaged arm, clenched his teeth, dragged himself up to the roof as George lunged across it, knife in one hand, the other shooting out to catch the fringe of the intruder’s hunting shirt.

The man let out a wild, terrified cry that instantly raised voices of alarm from the other boats. By sheer strength, George held onto the spy’s shirt while Judson painfully hauled himself up to the roof. As he did, he saw the chiseled starkness of the intruder’s face; saw black, moon-washed eyes blinking with rage and terror; saw dark, grease-dressed hair hanging straight to the man’s buckskin collar—

The Indian fought as George tried to drag him back to the center of the roof. Judson gained his feet at the roof’s edge, unsteady because the struggle had set the flatboat bobbing. All at once he saw something else stuck in the Indian’s belt:

Folded papers. The orders from the strong box.

With a guttural yell, the Indian yanked his knife from his belt, swiped at George’s throat with a bright arc of steel. Judson shouted a warning but George was even quicker. Releasing his hold on the captive, he jumped backwards.

His left boot landed in the trail of water left when the Indian stole aboard. George skidded and sprawled, hitting the roof with a loud clump. By then Judson was moving, peripherally conscious of clamoring voices, of boots pounding the landing as people poured from the other flatboats—

But all he saw was the Indian’s throwing hand jerking back, then streaking forward.

The knife was poorly aimed. George wrenched his right shoulder up. The blade struck the roof where he’d been lying, skittered away.

The Indian’s other hand closed on the butt of his English dragoon pistol. Crouching, he transferred the weapon to his right hand with startling speed, drew back the cock—

George Clark was a target too large and too close to miss. The Indian’s teeth shone, clenched in a kind of death’s-head grin as he extended his pistol arm full length. Frantically, George started to roll aside. But he was too late; too late—

Judson launched himself hard and fast. He had a dream-like sensation of almost flying across the roof. The Indian swung instinctively. The pistol discharged at close range. Judson doubled as the ball struck him in the gut.

Smoke drifted. Judson felt flowing warmth in his middle. Then pain.

He dropped to his knees, holding back a hurt cry. He heard the shouts of men clambering up the flatboat’s side behind him, several bringing lanterns whose light flooded the roof. George Clark had regained his feet and caught the Indian. He wrenched one arm around the spy’s windpipe. With his other hand he pressed his knife to the writhing captive’s throat.

Judson watched with a dreamy sense of unreality, even though ferocious pain was eating through his midsection, and blood was washing down under his trousers into his crotch. He knew very well why he had endangered himself deliberately. It was more than friendship. It was the terrible need for absolution.

Curiously, despite the pain, there was tranquility in him. Paying the high price of expunging some of his guilt brought a light-headed feeling of release; freedom. For a moment a strange parody of his old, shining smile wrenched his mouth.

Harsh voices sounded as the flatboat men rushed by him across the roof:

“You all right, George?”

“Who’d you catch? Who fired?”

“Damn half-breed, looks like—”

Clear and strong above the clamor, Judson heard George’s voice:

“See to Fletcher there. He took the Indian’s ball.”

George flung the captive into the hands of others as the lanterns tossed grotesque shadows back and forth across the swaying roof. In the pen area of a nearby boat, frightened sheep bleated louder than ever, quickly joined by squealing pigs, then a wailing infant.

George rushed to the men gathering around Judson, pushed them aside as Judson lowered himself clumsily to the roof. Breathing seemed difficult. The initial violent pain in his middle had subsided, replaced by a steady ache. From the waist downward he was blood-soaked. He could feel the drenching along his thighs.

George knelt beside him, face pale in the starlight. Several of the other men seized the Indian, pressed pistols and knives against his body, struck him in the face, barked questions:

“You speak English?”

“What’s your name, you red bastard?”

“Where’d you come from?”

“Say something or we’ll shoot your damn head off.”

In a rasping voice, the Indian snarled a word:

“Nen-nemki”

About to speak to Judson, George Clark glanced back over his shoulder.

“‘The Thunder.’ I’ve heard of him. Part English, part Shawnee—and one of Hamilton’s roving agents. He was after the orders in the strong box.”

“Got ’em, too. Almost,” a man said, jerking the folded papers from the spy’s belt.

Judson coughed. That worsened the ache in his belly. He rested his head against the flatboat roof, seeing George outlined against the moon. His friend’s hair glowed like silver fire, and his voice had an odd, strained quality:

“You took that shot deliberately, Judson.”

“You—” Speech required immense effort. “—you—would have gotten it—otherwise. And—”

More coughing, this time with a phlegmy sound.

“—it’s more important—you get—where you’re going than—that I go with you—”

“Let’s have none of that kind of talk. We’ll carry you to the surgeon at the fort—”

“What—whatever you say. Doubt—if it’s worth the trouble, though—”

Over the muted conversation, rougher voices were continuing the interrogation of the half-breed. He fought in the grip of the men holding him, tried in vain to avoid the kicks to his groin, the yanks of his hair, the knifepoints raked along his exposed skin. George kept staring at Judson, stricken to silence.

Nen-nemki started to scream at his tormentors, an outburst of badly pronounced English:

“Goddamn long knives! Come just for pelts, there is land enough for all. But now, goddamn Kaintucks, you want the land too! Come with your women, come with your plows, come with your houses of log and steal our hunting fields, our deer forests, so we fight you for Great Father George! You can kill Nen-nemki
—”

“You bet your damn greased-up hide we will,” someone growled.

The Shawnee paid no attention, his shrieks silencing the clamor of the growing crowd on the landing:

“—
but others will run the trails with guns from the Hair-Buyer, powder from the Hair-Buyer. You steal the land, we throw down the red war belt until we die or you die
—
!”

Listening to the shriek over a steadily rising roar in his inner ear, Judson somehow felt sorry for the captive. Beneath the fury of the Shawnee’s ranting was an almost pathetic undertone of misery and loss. Judson grieved for the savages in that strange moment, because he understood why the Shawnee cried his outrage. As the tidewater planters had gradually taken the freedom of the blacks, the frontiersmen too were taking what was not theirs: the lush woods and meadows Judson had seen only through the descriptions in George’s letters; but on those lands, Nen-nemki’s forefathers had roamed for generations—

Now George Clark and his boatloads of riflemen and pigs and children would ride the river westward. And if George’s great plan succeeded, the tribes would have even less land than they’d had before.

Perhaps it had to be. But, oddly, there was little hate for the Shawnee in Judson, even though he knew the half-breed had mortally wounded him.

Judson couldn’t hear the rest of Nen-nemki’s harangue. The roaring in his ears had grown too loud. He felt an overpowering desire to rest.

Fingers touched his cheek. George’s—

“We’ll fetch you to the surgeon now, Judson.”

“Still think—it’s useless—” One hand struggled up to clasp his friend’s, because he was all at once cold and afraid. “I’m—only sorry—I’ll never—see Kentucky with you—”

Sudden darkness descended.

He woke on a straw pallet in a log-walled room at Fort Dunmore. George was there, and the post doctor as well.