The Tory Widow (37 page)

“Pickled cabbage?”

“Yup—now cut mud and fetch us a cart.”

The boy was in no hurry. “Like water to a dying man, cabbage is to them Hessians.” He tucked the coin into the pocket of his grubby trousers. “For a shilling, sir, I can fetch you a Hessian who'll buy every bit of cabbage you have.”

Very interested in a speedy discharge of their cargo, and impressed with the boy's business acumen, Jack asked, “What's your name, monkey?”

“Joe Birdsong.”

“I tell you what, Master Birdsong—bring me a Hessian and I'll give you a shilling.” Jack scrubbed the boy's head with his knuckles. “Be quick about it, and I'll add a sixpence.”

Joe tore off, running up the earthen ramp to Maiden Lane.

Titus grabbed the sorry gray-horsehair wig Jack had left on his seat, and flipped it up onto the dock. “Keep your hair on!”

Jack made a face, but plopped the disheveled thing onto his head, stuffing his queue and stray wisps of black hair under it. “Hot and itchy . . .” he complained. “I don't see how anyone can stand to wear one of these things.”

He and Titus were dressed in farmer's garb—smock shirts and leather breeches with coarse, worsted-wool stockings. To avoid being recognized as bearded Jack Stapleton, errant scout to the 17th Light Dragoons, Jack kept his face so close-shaven Titus had taken to calling him “baby boy.” Besides changing into very humble attire, Titus altered his appearance by shaving his head completely bald, earning himself the name of “flap ears.”

“And wear your hat . . .” Titus scolded, as he donned a linen skullcap.

Jack set a wide-brimmed felt hat over the wig. “There! You happy, flap ears?”

“I am.”

Titus rolled the thirty-gallon barrels up the planks and onto the dock, then Jack took over, and rolled them to stand upright in two rows along the dock's edge. They had just finished off-loading the cargo when Joe Birdsong returned with a green-coated German officer in tow, announcing, “Couldn't find a Hessian—but this Brunswicker is just as good—worth a shilling, and I was quick.”

“He is, and you were,” Jack agreed, dropping one and six in Joe's cupped hand.

A big, sturdy fellow—as were all members of the elite Jäger Rifle Corps—the German was ready to do business. He slapped his hand down on a barrel and proclaimed, “
Sechzehn schilling
.” Sweeping a hand to indicate the entire cargo, he jerked his square chin up and said, “
Alles dieses—zwanzig pfund
. Tventy pount.”

Twenty pounds was double the price they'd expected for this cargo, carried as a ruse to get into the city. Jack looked at Titus for a confirming nod, and to the stern-jawed Jäger's surprise, without issuing a counteroffer, Jack said, “Sold!”

“Yer sech a jingle brain,” Joe Birdsong groaned. “I bet ye could have got eighteen a keg . . .”

Having struck such a good bargain, the happy German hurried off to hire a cart. After the barrels were loaded onto it, he tore two ten-pound banknotes from a bound booklet, and handed them to Jack in final payment.

“No.” Jack waved his hands in refusal. “No paper. I want coin.”

The German offered the notes again. “
Ya.
You take.”

“That's good money, sir,” Joe Birdsong piped up. “You
have
to take it.”

“
Ya. Ya.
” The Brunswicker shagged his big head up and down, and waved the notes in Jack 's face. “
Ist gut. Ist gut.
You take. Tventy pount. You take.”

“Listen, Johann—good money is made from silver or gold . . .” Jack pulled a guinea from his pocket as an example. “I want coin. No coin—no cabbage. You understand?”

The Brunswicker took a step forward and tried to put the cash into Jack 's hand. “You must take . . .”

Jack shook the German off, and grabbed ahold of one of the barrels on the cart. “C'mon, Titus, help me unload . . .”

“
Nein!
” The Brunswicker tossed the money to the dock, and sent Jack flying backward with an angry two-handed shove. The German banged his hand to the wagon boards, and shouted at the drayman, “Go . . .
go
!”

Jack threw off the hat and wig. Eyes hooded in rage, he lunged at the German. The two men thumped against the cart in a fierce grapple.

“
Godammit!
” Titus took off chasing after the banknotes, blown over the edge of the dock into the pettiauger.

Joe Birdsong scrambled up to the top of the cabbage barrels and together with the drayman shouted,
“Fight! Fight!”

Dockworkers, farmers, porters and draymen abandoned their business and rushed to form a ring of onlookers, cheering and laying wagers.

“Tuppence on the green-jacket . . .”

“I'll take that bet—that dark fella has a mean eye . . .”

Like a pair of rams with horns locked, Jack and the German planted their feet in a contest of strength and will, breaking apart for a moment, only to collide again with growling full force. In a shuffle of feet—each man trying to throw the other down—both men tottered off balance, falling to the deck in a great thud and grunt.

Wincing, groaning and cheering with every blow, the crowd shifted from one edge of the dock to the other as the fighters rolled in a tangle of swinging fists and elbows.

“The provost!” Joe Birdsong warned from his raised perch. “The provost is comin'!”

A shrill whistle screamed out in three sharp blasts, silencing the crowd in an instant. The fighters separated—Jack rolled onto his back, panting. The Brunswicker struggled up to his feet, hands propped to knees, and coughed up a wad of red-tinged sputum. Titus rushed in and pulled Jack upright.

Preceded by Sergeant O'Keefe and his silver whistle, the provost marshall made his way into the circle. Though his pinhead and prodigious ears were somewhat disguised by a very good-quality queued wig of brown hair, Jack was still able to recognize Cunningham as the man they'd tried to tar and feather beneath the Liberty Pole years before.

Tall and lank as the shank of a soupspoon, the provost wore an austere suit of dark worsted wool and heavy jackboots. A stiff, black leather stock was buckled tight around a neck too long for his narrow shoulders. Suspended by a red ribbon, a silver gorget engraved with the Royal Arms provided him a badge of office, a scrap of color and a little light reflected on his gaunt, pox-pitted face. He carried a cane—a rigid malacca shaft, the knob end a hissing serpent's head wrought in chaste silver.

Catching his wind, and swiping the blood trickling from his nose with the kerchief Titus provided, Jack thought if death were a man, he would look exactly like William Cunningham.

Cunningham tapped the cart with his cane. “What do we have here?”

The Brunswicker began barking out a tirade. Casting many a glare Jack 's way, he let loose with a long string of guttural syllables, alternately waving his arms, pounding a fist to his palm and pointing at Jack and the cartload of pickled cabbage.

Jack could not understand a single word, but the tone was enough to get him shouting in defense. “He's the one what started it—the madman attacked me! I'd rather feed it to the dogs than sell this twat-lick a shred of my cabbage!”

“Desist!”
Cunningham ordered, pounded his walking stick to the dock, the tendons on his neck corded. “Or I will have you brought to reason with the aid of nine cattails!”

Titus pulled Jack back and handed him his hat, muttering,
“Don't be an idiot!”
through gritted teeth.

A mustachioed Hessian appeared and in clipped and precise English offered to translate for the Brunswicker. After the two Germans finished a brief, head-nodding conversation, the Hessian pointed at Jack. “This peasant refused to accept banknotes in exchange for his cabbage. The peasant has broken the law and must be punished.”

Cunningham turned to Jack and demanded, “Your name and permit, sir.”

Jack put his hat on, the brim low over his brow, and he dug a folded paper from his pocket. “A peaceful man, I am, sir”—he offered the page to the provost—“but I defend myself when attacked, as anyone would.”

“Aye, the green-jacket started the fight,” the drayman concurred. “I saw the whole thing. Gave this farmer a right rough shove when he refused the banknotes.”

Titus swept his hat off, and handed the provost the two ten-pound notes. “The German threw these to the ground, sir, afore he went mad and attacked my master.”

Cunningham studied the permit. “Charles Hampton of Flatlands, Long Island—farmer.”

“Aye, sir.” Jack tugged at the brim of his hat in salute, pulling it down to cast a deeper shadow over his features.

The provost took a step forward—a slight cock to his head. “Have we ever chanced to meet before?”

Resisting a strong urge to look away, Jack replied, “Not that I recall, sir. It has been some years since I've come to the city.”

“Well, Mr. Hampton, the Germans are correct,” Cunningham announced. “It is unlawful to refuse the currency of the realm—as it is unlawful to brawl in the streets.”

“I was not aware, sir—about the currency.” Jack shrugged. “I was taught from a lad to trade our produce for silver, rather than risk being duped by counterfeit bills.”

“In this case your caution is unwarranted. These bills are quite genuine.” Cunningham handed back the permit and the banknotes. “Take the money, Mr. Hampton . . . Let the German have his cabbage, and put an end to this unfortunate misunderstanding—or I will act.”

“Of course, sir—and I thank you, sir.” Jack folded the papers into his pocket, noting the Irish burr in the provost's not-so-veiled threat. “My temper often gets the better of me. I apologize for having disturbed the peace.”

“Good man, now be about your business . . .” Cunningham tapped the dock twice with his walking stick.
“. . . All of you! About your business.”

Sergeant O'Keefe and Cunningham went to stand on the quay and watch the crowd disperse—O'Keefe with arms folded, glaring with beady pig eyes, and Cunningham in a casual but somehow malicious stance—legs apart—both hands resting on his cane.

The happy Germans followed the cabbage cart up the ramp to Maiden Lane. Titus tossed one gunny to Jack, and swung the other over his shoulder. “Let's go.”

Joe Birdsong ran after Jack, waving the gray wig. “Hey, mister! Ye left yer wig behind!”

Jack 's eye darted to the ratty wig, and to Cunningham observing the entire exchange with that squint to his eye. “Not my wig, lad. You can see I wear my own.” He raised his hat, showing off his thick black hair, and in a softer voice said, “But if you fail to find the owner, the wig-maker might give you a sixpence for it . . .”

“I got ye . . .” Joe winked, and stuffed the wig inside his shirt.

Jack didn't need to look back. He could feel Cunningham's eyes sizzling holes in the back of his head as he hurried up the ramp to Maiden Lane. He and Titus both heaved a sigh when at last they turned the corner out of sight.

Titus gave Jack a hard punch on the arm. “So you just had to have coin, eh?”

“I know . . .” Jack rubbed his arm. “I am such an ass—but I never figured the German to lose his wits . . . He went mad, he did.”

“Crazy for pickled cabbage, they are,” Titus agreed, shaking his head.

They traipsed down Queen Street toward the Cup and Quill, and Titus nudged Jack. “Does everything seem off-kilter to you?”

Jack nodded. “I don't like it.”

The shops were burgeoning with the wrong sorts of goods—like tea and woolen fabric—and the clotheslines were filled with the wrong sorts of laundry. The women gathered in clutches, gossiping in the wrong language, and the soldiers all wore the wrong uniforms. Jack loved his New York, but this New York made him anxious to be back on the pettiauger, rowing away.

They turned onto Anne's lane, and grabbing each other by the arm, Titus and Jack skittered back around the corner onto Dock Street.

“Damn! Right in front of the Cup and Quill . . . you can spot those helmets a mile away.”

“The
Crown
and Quill—” Titus corrected. Peering casually around the corner he muttered, “On guard. Three dragoons coming this way.”

They dropped down to hunkers. Jack pulled the brim of his hat down low, and they pretended to search through a gunnysack. Rising upright after the Redcoats passed them by, Titus said, “Wait here—I'll go on a scout.”

Jack took a step out and watched Titus, one hand in his pocket, the other gripping the gunnysack on his shoulder in a happy-go-lucky stroll down the lane. He stopped beneath the sign of the Crown and Quill, and after tying both shoes, turned and strolled back. Taking Jack by the arm, he steered a path toward the Battery.

“Crawling with Redcoats. And that captain—the one who signed us up in Flatbush? He's sitting in the front window with two others from the Seventeenth.”

“The front window?”

“Yep. New glass.”

“Hmmph . . . Did you see Anne?”

“Nope . . .” Titus shook his head. “Caught a glimpse of Sally, though—serving
tea
!”

“I guess we'd better come back after closing time.” Jack slapped Titus on the shoulder. “C'mon. We can get a cup of coffee at Montagne's.”

“I hope so,” Titus mumbled. “I don't care much for tea.”