Angel's Flight (11 page)

As he spoke, his eyes burned silver fire into hers. She gulped and nodded, fear driving through her like a knife of ice.

“Sit tight,” he commanded, slipping down.

The outlaws cheered as Jack threw off his coat and faced the scarred giant in the yellow shale of the defile. The smile of his opponent was broad, his few teeth, wolfish.

“Abelard ‘im, Davy!”

“Gouge his eyes out!”

“At your pleasure, sir.” Jack made a careless gesture, half turning, apparently dropping his guard.

With a whoop, long fingernails extended, Davy Bell hurled himself at Jack, intending to overwhelm the smaller man with his weight and size. Jack, however, seemed to understand the game well. So well, in fact, that Angelica hardly saw what happened next.

Somehow, before the long arms reached Jack, he had ducked, turned, and delivered a ferocious kick to his opponent’s groin. As the bigger man choked and bent, Jack whirled around to catch him by the greasy pigtail.

Jamming a knee into Davy’s back, he yanked his opponent’s head back. A knife that had appeared from somewhere made a lightning pass over the man’s exposed, hairy throat. Angelica watched in horrified fascination as blood welled behind the silver flash.

“Get back!” Jack roared, as the others came surging. “Or I’ll stick this pig!”

“Cheater!”
C
c
ame cries from all sides. “No weapons in rough and tumble!”

“Why not?” Jack sneered. “He’s got a blade.”

He gave Davy a vicious shake, ferocious as a terrier with an enormous badger. The hidden weapon—a large, bright, scalping knife—fell with a rattle onto the gravel.

There was a breathless silence. Then M’Bain began to laugh—and laugh—and laugh.

“Go on. Stick him, captain,” he cried, red in the face. “Serve him right, the damn fool, falling for that old trick you played.”

As if he meant to take the invitation seriously, Jack jerked Bell’s bushy head back again.

“Ah, but hold up there,” the chief amended. “Consider that there’s plenty of us to avenge poor Davy.”

The only reply Jack made was to sweep the knife again across Davy’s throat. A fresh line of blood appeared, joining the one made earlier in trickling down onto his dirty shirt. His eyes looked as if they were about to pop out of his head.

“But fewer than are breathing now, I promise, will be around to drink victory,” Jack replied.

Suddenly bringing the handle of his knife down with a resounding crack on top of Davy’s head, Jack kicked him down onto the ground. There was no further movement from that quarter. The giant lay unconscious, face down in the gravel.

M’Bain gave an enormous shrug. “You got yourself a deal, captain. Ransom, and no harm while we’re waitin’ on it. I can see you’re a man of good stomach. We’ll take plate, gold, cattle and horses for the lady. How much does uncle want you home, dear?” M’Bain’s single eye flashed a terrifying blue wink at Angelica.

“Ten horses and one hundred golden sovereigns.”

Angelica gasped again, but Jack was speaking with the assurance of a man who knew such booty existed.

“Make it two hundred.”

Angelica’s jaw dropped. Like all gentry, her family was land rich and cash poor. Jack frowned, shook his head as if considering. Then he said slowly, “It’ll skin Mynheer TenBroeck, but I’m certain it can be done, chief.”

A growl of greed and pleasure arose as the men contemplated their share—and the prospective ruin of a rich Mynheer.

“All right, this lady shall go home unharmed. Here me, there shall be no more said or done to either of these folks,” M’Bain turned and roared at his men.

“Your hand is more than your word,” said Jack gravely. “Give me your hand in front of your people.”

“Give me your knife first, captain.”

“Only in your chest.” Jack replied, letting out a laugh of his own and tossing back his loose mop of hair.

Angelica shuddered, but to her surprise M’Bain’s eye glittered with approval. “Christ! Damn me to hell, but I like you, captain,” he replied. “All right, keep your knife, but give me your word you won’t try to escape.”

With ceremony, M’Bain spat into his hand. Jack did the same and clasped the extended paw.

“You got you
rself
a deal,” M’Bain said, firmly shaking. “Safety for ransom.”

They went ever west into the mountains. They passed one habitation during their journey, a lone, burned-out cabin. In the morning light, at a place where there was a view of the river through a break in the ancient trees, they saw an ominous pall of smoke.

“Redcoats raidin’ up the river,” M’Bain observed to Jack who rode beside him. Angelica had noticed, he didn’t head up his men, but rode behind.

“Don’t want any of them who are sore about Tom and Royal and Ned and Davy and shootin’ us in the back,” he said. Then he let out another high-pitched snort of laughter. The chief’s most alarming statements, Angelica observed, were regularly punctuated with that joyless sound.

Reaching into the deep pocket of her apron, Angelica’s fingers grasped her chatelaine. She had no idea whether she would ever sit
placidly doing handwork again, but simply touching the familiar shapes, sensing the texture of the patches, had a calming effect.

How odd, she mused, as her fingers blindly drew the shape of her stork’s-head scissors, that such a delicate and fragile thing can provide comfort, even in the midst of a nightmare.

It was comforting, too, the knowledge that this skill of hers was above all else, hers alone. There was no power great enough to take it from her.

***

The sun was high when they reached their objective, a notch between the mountains called the Clove, a bit of table land wedged between formidable cliffs where three dirt tracks met. Smoke signaled human presence as they approached.

A few houses made a crossroads village surrounded by a haphazardly constructed cluster of sheds, lean-tos and cattle pens. The largest dwelling was a pair of cabins joined by a covered dog trot. There was also a small saddlebag cabin with a central chimney.

Trees had been felled, leaving the ground muddy and bare. The giants lay where they’d fallen, only their branches lopped off for fuel.

They passed a pen crammed with horses and cattle. By one of the sheds, women were huddled, engaged in butchering. Spotted, scrawny pigs and thin, yapping dogs, as well as a herd of dirty, tow-headed children roamed in equal numbers through the muddy central avenue.

“Well, here we are,” said their captor, displaying his blackened teeth. “Home sweet home.”

“When will you let us leave?” Jack asked in a casual tone.

“When I see my gold and my horses,” M’Bain replied. “Yon preacher can be our messenger. I’m letting him go in a couple of days, but I ain’t done with him yet.”

The Chief pointed at a pale-faced man slumped despondently by one of the huts.

“And lis’en up the rest of ye!” he roared at his men. “I’ll have the right hand fingers of the first fellow who messes with these folks, especially this lady here—the goose that’ll lay our golden egg.”

Somewhat later, Jack and Angelica were sitting on a log near the edge of the forest, working their jaws on some salty, tough jerky and sharing thin beer from an old bottle. Much the same as any Indian village, the women here worked while their men, who had done their share in the raid, were now lounging, gambling and sleeping.

They had expected an unpleasant confrontation with the women because of the men Jack was known to have killed, but none seemed forthcoming. Royal, the man who’d been ready to shoot him in the back, had had a woman, but instead of condolences, this woman was receiving a flurry of congratulations from her companions.

Only the loss of Neddy’s hand provoked any ill feeling and this had been mostly put to rest when Jack had expertly stopped the bleeding by cauterizing and sewing up the stump.

“God in Heaven,” Angelica whispered after Jack had washed up after this task. “Where did you learn that?”

Behind them, Neddy lay among a sullen knot of his friends, babbling incoherently as he rolled about on a mat, stupefied with whiskey.

“On a battlefield you don’t always have a surgeon when you need one.”

“I thought we were dead back there,” Angelica whispered, shuddering.

“I did, too, but I know a little about this kind of animal,” Jack replied, nodding back at the smoky settlement. “They appreciate bravery, although they’re like dogs. They’ve only got the guts to attack if they’re in a pack.”

“Would you really have cut Bell’s throat?”

“I should have. He’ll try some other mischief before this is all over. It won’t grieve the world when he’s gone.”

“Not at all,” Angelica replied. “He was a known rustler, but at Kingston, they could only prove theft against him. He was branded and whipped out of town. Later it was thought he’d done much worse,” she said, her voice lowering. “The body of a young girl was uncovered in the woods just after he’d gone.”

“I should’ve cut his throat.” Jack was briefly regretful. “But I’d already done four of them. Being taken prisoner was inevitable, and there is sentiment, even among vermin.”

Angelica gazed at her companion. The way this gentleman, now sitting so tamely beside her, had killed! So precisely, without any emotion, knocking men over like pins on the bowling green. She now understood why George Armistead had taken that step backward.

“They surely would’ve killed us if you had just—just—stuck him,” she observed. She could just see the hilt of that thin and very sharp secret blade, now back inside his boot.

“Maybe. And maybe not,” was his troubling reply. “No telling with this kind. M’Bain might’ve just laughed, for I did make a fool of his man. I was certain he was going to be more trouble than that.”

A man approached them, picking his way around the huge tree trunks. By his dark suit and round clerical hat, they recognized the captive preacher.

When he’d come close, he bowed politely and said, “Reverend Witherspoon at your service, miss and sir.”

“I’m Captain Church, but I don’t generally go by it.”

Witherspoon looked momentarily surprised and Angelica understood why. If there was one thing you could usually be sure of about an ex-military man, it was that he’d proudly insist upon the dignity of his last rank.

The preacher was a tall, thin man who wore a mouse- gray, short wig. He spoke with the elegant but, to Angelica’s ears, ungrammatical drawl peculiar both to the southern colonies and the villages of the southwest coast of England.

“And how did you fall into the hands of these brigands, Reverend Witherspoon?” Angelica asked.

“I was travelin’ from my parish in Coksaky. I was leavin’ this benighted place, miss, for my fidelity is to King George. I was ridin’ a fine mare down to her owner, Mr. Philip de la Barre, who has already fled to the city. Near the village of West Point these reivers caught me. They haunt the river roads and waylay travelers.

“It was, of course, the mare which attracted them. I fear they would’ve made away with me on the spot, but they, or rather, their idiosyncratic leader, was feelin’ a sort of spiritual itch which he decided I could scratch.”

“Indeed?” Jack raised a blonde eyebrow.

“It’s quite true,” said the parson, clearing his throat. He paused, produced a silver flask from his pocket, and offered it to Jack. “A drink, sir?” he asked. “A gift from the de Lanceys who own the land in my lost parish.”

Jack accepted. After a sip, he gave an appreciative nod, and took another. “Some of the best whiskey I’ve tasted,” he observed.

“Indeed,” the parson agreed. “You know, it seems I shall be allowed to go on my way eventually, but they’ve told me they want me to perform some offices of the church for them.”

Jack gave a cold laugh that reminded Angelica uncomfortably of M’Bain. It seemed the practiced killer with whom she’d found herself riding earlier today had not entirely departed.

“Yes. I’ve said a funeral service for one of the blackguards and another over the graves of three children.”

“And I believe I’ve brought you more of the same, reverend,” said

“Yes, I’m told I shall read another funeral service. And so, sir,” the parson replied, fixing them with his bright, small eyes, “may God continue to defend you and your companion. Sittin’ there by the cook shack, I’ve been hearin’ about what you did. M’Bain’s sayin’ he wishes he had just one like you by his side. He seems marvelous takin’ by you, captain.”

Jack acknowledged the compliment with a polite inclination of his fair head. “Twenty years in His Majesty’s cavalry, Reverend Witherspoon. And none of it on the parade ground, if you take my meaning.”

Witherspoon nodded, accepted the flask Jack returned, and took a sip himself. “Most fortunate for you and for this young lady, captain.”

“Yes,” Angelica replied. The Jack she’d seen this morning had inspired fear—and awe.

“Yes. And what have you done apart from praying over their dead?” Jack asked.

“Well, two nights ago I preached to them,” the reverend replied. “Mr. M’Bain gave me specific instructions on the nature of the sermon. None of your Popish tarrydiddle, says he, but a good old Covenanter hellfire sermon.”