War Path (12 page)

Sam Oday and Danny Dulin continued to play. Some of the men began to kick up their heels, leap about and swill from their clay jugs. From all appearances, they had drawn their boats ashore and planned to bide a few well spent hours in the company of these strumpets. Molly took Robert Rogers and dragged him off to one side and forced him to dance. Moses grabbed Locksley Barlow and pulled him aside. Barlow grimaced, but having resigned himself to this ruse hours ago, tried to play the part to the best of his ability. However, every time Shoemaker tried to whirl him about, the younger man would trip over the lace-trimmed hem of his skirt.

Johnny Stark raised a spyglass and inspected the shore camp. Everything looked as it should, the bateaux were drawn up on the muddy shore. He had to grin as Rogers's men, the pretend
voyageurs
, dragged the reluctant “harlots” out toward the fire and forced them to dance as they played their fifes and clapped their hands.

“You'll have to sleep with one eye open after this, Johnny Stark,” one of the company muttered from behind him. It was Cassius Fargo, a dangerous man in a time when such were needed. Stark had been surprised when Fargo offered to don the green buckskins, for the man made no attempt to conceal his animosity. But a common enemy often made for unlikely allies.

“I always do,” Stark replied. He was keenly aware Cassius still blamed him in part for the death of his brother. The Fargos were an odd bunch, bred by a cruel, Bibletoting old seadog who had driven his wife to an early grave and instilled in his offspring a deep sense of kinship and blind loyalty to family.

Stark remembered some years back how Old Man Fargo died when a well collapsed in on him. His sons had left their father entombed and simply started a new well on the other side of their farmhouse and moved on. They were a peculiar bunch indeed. Stark could feel the eyes of the man, boring into his back.

“Best you Green Mountain boys fan out through the trees,” he called out. “We will take them by surprise and leave them with their companions in the cave.” He took care to add, “But if there's trouble, hold your fire till Molly's out of harm's way.”

“She joined as one of us, she ought to take the same chances,” Cassius muttered, easing back into the shadows.

Stark swung about and faced the man. “And she does. But someone cuts down on the
voyageurs
and brings her to harm, they will have to answer to me.”

“I have been told she can take care of herself,” Cassius remarked.

“So I hear,” Stark noted, his tone of voice adding import to the response. And Cassius wondered if Molly had spoken to anyone of that time back in August when Fargo had followed the woman into the woods. He met Stark's cool gaze, but the big man was as hard to read as a bloody heathen. Fargo smiled.

“Do not worry about me, Major Stark.” He licked his thumb and then moistened the sight on his rifle barrel. “I always hit what I aim at.”

He eased behind the trunk of a sugar maple, its leaves a scarlet canopy overhead. Stark felt a prickle up and down his spine as he turned his back on the man. He checked the rest of his company. The Rangers were concealed in the emerald shadows of a forest awash with the brilliant colors of fall, leaf-laden branches of gold, scarlet, rust red, Lincoln green, dark browns, a tapestry of trees gloriously arrayed across the hills and along the path leading up from the water's edge. Stark crouched alongside the mastiff among some tall green fronds that somehow found enough sunlight to thrive in the forest. The mastiff growled and glanced over its shoulder at Cassius Fargo. Stark scratched Duchess behind her ears.

“Yeah, I don't like him either,” he told the dog. To their right and farther up the slope was the cave itself, that deep low-roofed depression in the cliff, a gaping hollow where the low, wide shelf of granite jutted from the earth to create a natural chamber.

Here came Rogers and his disguised companions trailing up the path toward the barrels of rum and ale they had set in full view upon a pair of wooden trestles below a second makeshift sign across which they had scrawled the name
La Chute.

The ruse had worked for the better part of the day. They had captured six crews, taken six bateaux loaded with supplies for the French forts. Lake Champlain, the rivers, and the surrounding hills and mountains were home to the Abenaki, the Iroquois, and to French settlers from every walk of life. Much like the English, some came to put down roots and build, others to take what they could and move on.

Stark studied the approaching boats. The ruse had worked again. But he felt a twinge of misgiving. There were four boats, two large craft, two smaller; he made a rough estimate of another twenty-five
voyageurs
. That many could mean trouble all at once. And they were almost to the shore.

He shifted his stance, rose up from the fronds, and maneuvered the looking glass until Molly filled the eyepiece. She wore a white drawstring skirt over a calico chemise. Her bodice was French cut, sleeveless, pink-and-white striped, and clung to her shapely form. By heaven, the red-haired lass was a fair sight. A man would have to be made of stone not to appreciate the rounded contours of her lithe figure. He'd grown accustomed to seeing her in buckskins as they had been on the trail for almost three weeks. He had to grin and then glanced aside at the mastiff.

“That is some woman,” he muttered. “To look that good and still be able to shoot the eye out of a horsefly at twenty paces.” Duchess lifted her sad, seamed face and stared balefully at Stark, then snorted and crouched down on her belly.

The four bateaux pulled up on the shore, their crew spilled over the side and hauled their boats safely up onto shore then came charging up the slope, through sunlight and shifting shadows, as if each man were running a race to see who would have the first draft of ale, who the first romp “in bushy park.” Everything was going according to plan. And then it all fell apart.

“Alarme!”

“Damn,” Stark muttered, looking in the direction of the cave. “Shut those Frenchmen up,” he muttered.

“Alarme! Alarme!”

A chorus of warning shouts continued to reverberate from the recesses of the cave. The prisoners within were willing to risk being shot to warn their companions. Several of the
voyageurs
on the path drew up sharply, caught off guard. Their hands dropped to their pistols while the rest of the boatmen slowed to a walk, then stopped and exchanged glances, undecided. A few paces away were the women and the kegs of rum and the promise of a dalliance. But the cries issuing from the cave could not be ignored.

Stark stepped into view.

The
voyageurs
looked somewhat stunned at the sight of him. He leveled Old Abraham and ordered the lot of them to surrender. Locksley, Strode, Molly Page, and the men disguised as
voyageurs
produced their weapons and took cover behind the tables. The rest of the Ranger company rose from hiding and spread out behind Stark, their rifles cocked and primed.

“Drop your knives and pistols, no one will come to harm,” Stark shouted, his voice cutting through the stillness that permeated the clearing in front of the cave. One of the
voyageurs
shrugged and tossed his pistol aside on the path. Unfortunately the pistol discharged, gouging a hole in the trampled earth.

Stark never knew if the mastiff had been startled by the gunshot or acted out of some subtle instinct, but the beast lurched against his leg, nudging the big man aside just as a shot rang out from behind Stark and a lead ball fanned the air and clipped his ear as it whirred past. Stark winced, ducked instinctively, saw one of the
voyageurs
directly in front of him twist on his heels, fire into the air, and topple over backwards.

“No!” Stark shouted. But it was too late. His voice was lost in the roar of gunfire.

14

B
urn the boats. Set them ablaze. We must quit this place. No telling who heard all the noise,” Stark ordered. A black pall of gunsmoke shrouded the path. The melee had lasted but a few minutes, long enough for men to die and for those who didn't, to toss aside their pistols and surrender. Molly emerged from a cluster of birch trees that had screened her while she discarded the dress and donned her buckskins. She looked relieved but not nearly as much as Barlow and Strode who swore oaths that hell itself would freeze over before they ever suffered the indignities of a bodice again.

The bodies of the freighters who had been killed in the brief but murderous exchange of gunfire had been dragged off to the side of the path. The survivors, a little more than half the number of men who had come ashore, had been bound and left in the cave along with those who had risked their lives to warn them of the danger, men like Benoit Turcotte and his companions who were the first crew to be taken in by the ruse.

The path and clearing reeked of powder smoke and drying blood. The stillness that followed was broken by the hurried exchanges among the Rangers as they gathered what supplies they needed and loaded their canoes. Robert Rogers approached from the lake that he and several of the men were preparing to set out upon. He cradled his rifle in the crook of his arms as he drew abreast of Molly Page and Big John Stark.

“Best we portage around Fort Carillon and head into Lake George. With any luck we can make it before nightfall; if not, by moonlight then.”

“Luck,” Stark grumbled. “Poor luck that pistol discharging.” Molly leaned in to Stark and standing on her tiptoes, reached up to dab the blood from Stark's ear where the rifle ball had notched his flesh. “Ow!”

“You've been wounded.”

“I knew that before you began to torment me,” he grumbled. “But no matter, I have another ear.”

“Well you don't have another head. What a silly thing, to step out like that.”

“I thought if I showed myself they might surrender.”

“Better listen to Molly,” Rogers said. The three watched as flames sprang up from the bateaux. Moses Shoemaker and half a dozen men had set them ablaze. “Shame to waste such good boats. But we don't have the men to carry them across country. But what of the men in the cave?”

Before Stark could reply, Cassius Fargo joined in the discussion. He looked as if he regretted the French surrender. “I say the French spared none of ours at William Henry,” Cassius Fargo exclaimed. “And no one spared my brother. You remember that I warrant, John Stark.” He busily rammed powder and shot down his rifle barrel. “Let them suffer the same fate.” Fargo gestured toward the cave. “I can set a charge off and bring the ceiling down and even bury them for you, all Christian-like.”

“We will leave them. Someone will be along,” Stark said. He leaned on Old Abraham, his gaze sweeping over the path, the clearing, and finally the mouth of the cave.

“Leave them! The devil you say,” Cassius scowled. “What say the rest of the company?”

“I did not ask them,” Stark replied. His gaze hardened. “There has been enough killing today.” He reached out and caught Fargo by the arm. “Robert Rogers and I lead this company or we end it right here and you make your own way back to Fort Edward.”

Fargo searched the faces of the two men, and could clearly see they meant exactly what they said. He had no wish to leave the company, especially not in French and Indian territory. He turned on his heels and almost tripped over the mastiff that had wandered up behind him.

“Tell your dog to get out of my way,” Fargo snapped.

“She has her own mind and does what she wants to. I'd step around her, but you do what you want.”

Cassius's face grew flush with anger. He aimed a kick at the mastiff. Duchess leaped to her feet, bared her teeth and loosed a savage series of barks that forced Cassius to jump out of harm's way. The animal's slobber spattered his breeches as the man made a wide arc around the mastiff. Fargo lost no time in retreating down the path to the canoes.

Duchess settled herself directly in the middle of the path again. “Get out of the way,” Stark said, grinning, and slapped the beast across the rump with his Scottish bonnet. The animal jumped, startled, and then cleared the trail. Stark turned to Molly and Rogers. “I'll be along in a minute,” he told them. They nodded and started back to the lake while Stark continued on alone into the shelter of the cave. The air was cooler here and the light dim as he ambled toward the back wall where the
voyageurs
were arranged against the face of the cliff, their arms bound behind them.

“I have burned your boats,” he said. A chorus of groans and curses rose up at this announcement. “Your friends in Fort Carillon or some Abenaki war party will probably spot the smoke and come to investigate. If not, then you must free yourselves as best you can. With some effort you can loosen your bonds.” He felt their eyes on him. The Rangers had suffered only a few minor wounds. The
voyageurs
had lost several of their own. He knew the feeling.
Let them hate me. But let them fear me as well.

“Captain Barbarat will have his marines after you,
monsieur,”
Benoit Turcotte spoke up. “He conquered Fort William Henry, and he will hunt you down for this.”

“He won't have far to look.” His expression hardened. “You have not seen the last of John Stark.”

He lingered for a moment, to let the gravity of his words sink in. The war had come to them. Then he turned and left them alone, with their thoughts and his warning. So the Frenchmen's commander's name was Barbarat.

I'll remember.

Out of the gloom and into the fierce light of day, Stark paused, taking in the sight of the swaying branches, the sentinel trees, the glories of autumn above the blood-patched sod. His left ear began to throb. He winced as he touched the raw flesh where the tip had been shot away. He could still feel the heat of the rifle ball that had clipped him as it whirred past on its way to a
voyageur's
heart. Someone directly behind Stark, one of his own company, had possibly saved his life. He noticed Cassius Fargo, standing by the water's edge, framed against a backdrop of leaping flames and coiling black smoke.