The Blacksmith's Daughter: A Mystery of the American Revolution (33 page)

"Good.
 
Margaret will spread it around, and you'll
become the honorable fellow who intends to pay his debts as soon as he emerges
from adversity."

"Do you think she'll swallow
it?"

She grimaced.
 
"Who knows?
 
She was quite taken with him."

Tom's expression soured.
 
"Of course she was.
 
He didn't interrogate
her
.
 
Were she exposed to his tender ministrations,
she'd avoid him like malaria."
 
They crested a rise, and he pointed with the musket.
 
"Yonder."

The pine barren thinned southward
to reveal land cultivated in gentle slopes.
 
Presiding over miles of cornfield and pasture, several barns caught the
setting sunlight.
 
Smaller buildings
phalanxed them.
 
Oaks shaded a two-story
manor on a hill.

In Abel's office, Basilio had
mentioned someone named Carter wanting storage fees, presumably for the
furniture.
 
She suspected they'd
discover "Carter" owned the property surrounding the barn.
 
From the appearance of the land, he didn't
look like the sort who lacked for money, but Southern gentry weren't given to
publicizing hard times, preferring to maintain a façade of wealth by selling
off a slave here or a few acres of land there.
 
"A fellow named Carter was asking for storage fees."

"Then that's probably his
land."

They walked downhill and left
behind the scent of pine resin to head south on a path.
 
Cornfields swallowed them, stalks and leaves
dull green from lack of rain.
 
After
another few minutes, slave quarters became visible through the foliage, then a
couple of Negro women up to their elbows in laundry.
 
When the women straightened to eye them and Tom's musket, Betsy
said, "Where might we find Mr. Carter?"
 
Her face shiny with sweat, one woman pointed toward the house,
and soapsuds dripped off her forearm.

They passed more cabins.
 
Tom cleared his throat.
 
"The corn is ready for harvest, but
where are the slaves?
 
Even assuming
that most hands are working another field, I don't see enough slaves here to
occupy these cabins.
 
I certainly don't
see enough to have planted all these fields in the spring."

"I didn't see but a half dozen
cattle in the pasture.
 
Perhaps the fall
of Charles Town wasn't kind to Mr. Carter."

"That would explain why he
couldn't resist an offer to store your furniture.
 
The barn we want is to the left."

Startled doves winged away, and a
sonata of cicadas encircled Betsy and Tom.
 
Corn cleared to reveal the north end of the barn and three other
buildings.
 
From one, the ping and clank
of a blacksmith's hammer pierced the cicada-buzz, but otherwise, the area
seemed deserted.

Around the front of the barn, Tom
lifted the latch to the door.
 
He and
Betsy stepped inside, leaving the door ajar.
 
During the seconds it took for their eyes to adjust to the gloom, Betsy
noted that the barn retained the musty smell of livestock, even though
desiccated droppings told them no animals had been there for several weeks.
 
They bypassed farm equipment and found her
furniture, draped with canvas, in the northeast corner.

She fondled everything she could
get her hands on with a mounting sense of loss until Tom flung canvas back over
the cabinet holding her grandmother's china.
 
"Moping won't do you any good.
 
We cannot carry it back with us.
 
We need to find this Carter fellow and get to the bottom of the
theft."

The barn door whammed open.
 
They pivoted in surprise.
 
Four men backlit by waning daylight darted
in and took cover behind farm equipment.
 
One called out.
 
"We finally
caught you rabble stealing our supplies.
 
Lay down your weapons.
 
Put your
hands up.
 
And get out of that corner
where we can see you!"

Taking care to make no sudden
movements, Tom dropped his musket and knife in the straw underfoot.
 
Then he and Betsy walked forward with hands
visible.
 
A musket held ready, one man
rose from concealment and slunk forward to kick Tom's weapons from reach.
 
Bewilderment creased his expression at the
sight of them.
 
"Come outside where
we can see you better."

Outside, daylight made Betsy aware
from the fine linen and wool on her captors that they weren't farm hands.
 
After examining Tom's musket and knife, a
man in his early forties swiveled his dark-eyed gaze back and forth between
them.
 
"You aren't the thieves we
were expecting in my barn.
 
Who the
devil are you?
 
Why were you in
there?"

"Are you Mr. Carter?"

"Yes, Josiah Carter.
 
And who might you be?"

"Betsy Sheridan."
 
Seeing that the name "Sheridan"
went unrecognized by them, she pondered how to continue.
 
"I was verifying that the furniture
stored in the barn is mine."

Carter shrugged.
 
"What of it?
 
It was delivered this morning."

"Yes, and stolen from my home
in Augusta last week."

From the blank stares on their
faces, she could tell the men knew little, if anything, of the spy ring's
activities.
 
Carter said, "Here,
now, I saw a receipt for the sale of the furniture."

"An estate sale in Charles
Town?
 
We've heard that story.
 
I assure you the receipt's false."

Tom shifted his feet.
 
"I was in Augusta last Thursday morning
at her home and witnessed the furniture being loaded onto a wagon by
Spaniards.
 
One of the thieves knocked
me senseless and set the house afire."

Another of the men blurted,
"Spaniards!
 
Did you see who
delivered the furniture?"

"Quiet, Jeremiah."
 
Josiah Carter assumed an expression of
diplomacy.
 
"Perhaps there's a
misunderstanding about the furniture.
 
I
certainly don't want any trouble.
 
Why
don't you query the gentleman who purchased it and paid me to store it?
 
He's at the house right now."

Betsy crossed her arms.
 
"The obnoxious German."

"German?"
 
Carter stared at her.
 
"He's Dutch, not German."

Dutch.
 
Of course.
 
That puzzle
piece dropped into place.
 
Betsy and Tom
exchanged a look of comprehension.
 
Holland had sided with the Continentals against Britain.
 
But Holland didn't have the resources of
France or even Spain.
 
The Stadtholder
was putting himself out on a financial limb to ally with a ring of rebel
assassins and spies, unless the assassination of British military figures
furthered agenda for the Dutch.

She said, "No matter what
country he hails from, he's a thief."

Carter's lips flinched.
 
"In principle, perhaps, but
professionally Jan van Duser is a surveyor whose grandfather was one of
Camden's first settlers."

"I will appreciate the
opportunity to speak with him."

"Then I shall escort you to
him this moment."

***

The mysterious Jan van Duser made
them wait in Carter's drawing room for an hour.
 
By the time he deigned to meet them, a slave had made the rounds
of the drawing room and lit candles to banish the twilight descending on the
countryside.
 
Carter led Betsy and Tom
to gardens behind his manor, where torchlight in no way warmed frostbite in van
Duser's eyes.
 
Two strapping fellows
Betsy hadn't seen before flanked the Dutchman.
 
"Mr. Carter, I require a private audience with these
persons
."
 
Van Duser motioned toward the house with his
ebony walking stick.

Watching the nervous flicker of
Carter's gaze over van Duser's henchmen slid fear up Betsy's spine.
 
Did van Duser presume to harm them on
Carter's property and still maintain his storage arrangement with a man who now
suspected him of burglary?
 
But perhaps
Carter was pinned beneath van Duser's thumb.

After Carter hurried for the house,
the Dutchman signaled everyone to follow and strode into the gardens while his
ruffians assumed position behind Betsy and Tom.
 
Betsy sensed the tension in Tom but kept her eyes on van Duser.

"Mrs. Sheridan, it surprises
me to see you here."

"Why?
 
You stole my furniture.
 
I want it back."

He turned on them, much of his
sunburned face in shadow.
 
In one fluid
movement, the henchmen pressed knives to her throat and Tom's.
 
When she swallowed, the steel singed her throat.
 
Fear zinged through her veins like rivers of
fire.

The Dutchman's voice filled with
contempt.
 
"I received the distinct
impression from your husband that you were intelligent.
 
Yet you and Mr. Alexander are about to have
your throats slit.
 
Hardly the move of
an intelligent woman.
 
Did you not
understand my warning yesterday?"

She licked her lips.
 
"D-do you plan to tell Clark we were
both murdered by banditti?"

He smiled.
 
Even by twilight it wasn't a lovely
sight.
 
"A horror of war, I'm
afraid.
 
Outlaws prey upon the
innocent."

"How do you think Mr. Carter
will feel having contributed to two murders in his garden, especially since he
already suspects that you did indeed steal my furniture?"

"A few more guineas will ease
his conscience."

Horrified, Betsy realized she had
nothing to lose by blasting van Duser with everything she knew.
 
"With so much coin to throw around, you
must be Ambrose.
 
Do you plan for Clark
to assassinate the Earl Cornwallis, or is Lord Rawdon his target?
 
Who will Basilio and Francisco
assassinate?
 
The British won't be duped
much longer by Abel Branwell's operation.
 
What more do the Dutch get out of this besides assassinated British
officers?"

"Madam, I fail to understand
why you never took such conclusions to the British.
 
They might have completely unraveled our operation by now had you
done so.
 
True, they'd have thrown you
in jail for complicity, but at least you'd still be alive on the morrow.
 
Apparently you've as little love for them as
you have for Continentals.
 
I wonder
that any mortal can straddle such a fence for so long.
 
Surely you cannot stay on that fence much
longer.
 
When you fall off, I cannot
afford for you cast your lot with the British."

Bitterness clawed through her
fear.
 
"I don't expect you to
understand.
 
Issues superior to asinine
causes inspire my loyalty.
 
My husband's
welfare, for example."

The Dutchman frosted her with his
scowl for almost a quarter of a minute.
 
Then, after the barest movement of his head, the pressure from the knife
on her throat released.
 
In her
peripheral vision, the henchmen backed off and Tom massaged his throat.
 
But in no way did she feel invincible.

The ring on his forefinger glinting
golden by torchlight, Jan van Duser stroked a fern before addressing her
again.
 
"Your husband is not of
your concern these days.
 
However I
assure you he's well."

She drew a shaky breath.
 
"I want to see him."

"He's unavailable to meet
you.
 
He's performing admirable service
for King George by escorting a convoy of supplies to the British base in
Hanging Rock north of here."
 
The
smile slithered across his face.
 
"They'll never reach Hanging Rock, thanks to intelligence from Mr.
Sheridan."

"Ambushed by Whigs,"
muttered Tom.

"Yes.
 
The supplies are badly needed by Major Davie
and his North Carolinians.
 
I expect the
arrival of a messenger at any moment to confirm his good fortune.
 
Never fear, I shan't allow Mr. Sheridan to
languish as a prisoner of war very long."