The Turning of Anne Merrick (53 page)

The case of dueling pistols lay open on the bed. Anne struggled to keep a steady hand, tapping the right amount of priming powder into the pan on the flintlock. After loading both guns, she buckled on a leather belt, stuffing one pistol at her waist and handing the other to Sally, who did the same.

They ran down the stairs and out the door to find the German liveryman waiting under the streetlight with a pair of fresh horses
hitched to a light wagon. He smiled in relief to see Anne, and, pointing to the wagon, he asked,
“Ist das gut, madam?”

“Very good!” Anne said, relieved he’d understood her panicked instructions. The driver was a brawny young man, and she clapped him by one shoulder and pointed to the west. “You take us west—to the American camp. Valley Forge,
ja
?
Schnell, ja?
” She pulled the sack of coin from her pocket, shaking it in front of his eyes before pressing the money into his hand. “There’s twenty Spanish dollars for you…” Before he could refuse, Anne stepped up into the wagon bed. The German stared to the west, his face impassive, weighing the purse in his big palm.

Sally and Pink climbed in behind Anne, and Sally said, “D’ye understand, ye huge cabbage-eater?
Amerikaner
camp,
ja
?”

“Ja,”
the German said with a nod as he hopped up to take the driver’s seat.
“Ich verstehe…”

“Th’ jingle o’ silver is a universal language, na?” Sally said, as they settled into their seats with backs against the wagon wall and legs outstretched.

“You—” The driver swung around in his seat, pointing to each of them in turn.
“Amerikaner,
Amerikaner,
Amerikaner
—
”
Slapping his chest, he added, “Me—
Amerikanisch!
” With a chipped-tooth grin he tossed the bag of coin into Anne’s lap, snapped the reins, and the wagon lurched up Chestnut Street.

“Fancy that.” Sally laughed. “He’s a lad o’ parts, our German—a rebel!”

Once they turned onto Market Street, the German broke out his whip, building quickly to a steady gallop, the ironshod hooves and wheels rumbling loud on the cobblestones. Anne settled back between Sally and Pink, and they all held hands.

“We are a-fleetin’ and a-flyin’ now!” Pink said. “We’ll be there in no time.”

Sally added, “Fresh horses, a good driver, and less than twenty miles betwixt us and safe haven in Valley Forge.”

With a bone-rattling thump they crossed the city limit and the place where stone paving abruptly transitioned to a rutted dirt road.
The pace slowed, but they left the telltale rumble of wheels on stone behind.

“Day’s breaking,” Anne muttered, and, sitting up she stared at the eastern sky brightening with the rise of the sun. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Pink asked.

“Horses.”

“Yer overwrought,” Sally insisted. “Naught but wagon clangor yet ringin’ in yer ears.”

Anne rose up on her knees, tugging the pistol from her belt. “We’re being followed…”

Sally pulled Anne to a sit. “Frettin’ yer guts t’ fiddle strings does ye no good.”

“He’s toying with me, like a cat with a mouse,” Anne said, her eyes riveted to the east.

Pink moved forward, squinting. “There
is
somethin’ out there… You can see ’em now.”

Along with the clatter of many horse hooves echoing in the quiet of the dawning, a string of tiny specks danced on the horizon. The German cast a glance over his shoulder, and shot up to his feet, cracking the whip over the horses’ heads.
“Gott verdammt!
Britische dragoner!”

“There’s at least a dozen horsemen…” Pink said. “They’re gaining on us.”

“There’s no way horses pulling a load can outrace a company of British dragoons…” Anne clacked her pistol to half cock. Sally drew hers, and did the same. The German looked back and raised a brow. He sat down and pulled an ancient musketoon from beneath his seat, laying it across his lap.

The sun inched up in the sky as the wagon rumbled along the rutted road, the tiny dark specks grown to full silhouettes, riding two abreast. The dragoons came upon them, red horsehair tails streaming from the tops of their leather helmets, galloping along the roadside, staying just out of pistol range.

These light cavalry dragoons were expert horsemen. Armed with sabers, carbines, and the long-barrel pistols, dragoons were trained to fire and reload at full gallop. Another order was shouted and the
horsemen turned, coming in at an angle to the road and the bounding wagon.

“They’ve come into range.” Sally braced the barrel of her pistol on the wagon’s edge. “Do ye see him, Annie?”

“He’s the one masked,” Anne said, “riding the bay charger.”

Wearing a black kerchief tied over the left side of his face, saber raised, Edward Blankenship directed the charge from the rear of the oncoming attack.

Sally aimed and pulled the trigger. “Shite!” she cried, her shot jerked high by a bump in the road. “Wasted!”

The horsemen pushed their mounts to full-stretched gallops, now running parallel to the road and the wagon. The German leveled his weapon at them. In a flash of smoke, the blast of buckshot flying from the flared muzzle of the musketoon sent the attack force into a scatter, three riders dropping back, slowing to a canter.

“Huzzah!” Sally shouted.

Blankenship sheathed his sword, drew his pistol from the saddle-mounted holster, and spurred his mount. Anne took a shot at the fast-moving target to cover the German rushing to reload his musketoon, but the dragoon Captain charged forward unfazed. He came sweeping past, no more than five yards away, and discharged his weapon. The women ducked down at the flash, arms thrown around one another, but the driver was hit square in the chest, the blast from the high-caliber weapon throwing him from his seat. Anne shot up to see the German left behind, lying in a heap at the side of the road.

Terrified by the gunfire, the runaway horses careened off the road, and the women were thrown flat as the wagon veered precariously, wheels crashing and bouncing over the rough terrain. Anne struggled to keep her balance, trying to clamber over the driver’s seat and gain hold of the reins snapping like satin ribbons in the air, just beyond her reach.

The wagon jolted over a tree stump, knocking Anne back with Pink and Sally being thrown from one side of the wagon bed to the other as the driverless, exhausted horses slowed, dragging the wagon to a complete stop.

The fecund steam of sweating horseflesh was suddenly overwhelming as the dragoon company circled the wagon, the horses all huffing great breaths of air. Lying in a dazed tumble, head pounding, Anne tried to catch her breath, but the menacing, dull note of hoofbeats closing in set her heart racing anew.

In a creak of leather, several dragoons dismounted, and one leaned over the edge of the wagon, the death’s-head emblem painted on the frontpiece of his black leather helmet gleaming in the oncoming daylight. He issued a terse command. “Out!”

Dazed and shaken, the women helped one another over the wagon side. With the muzzle end of a carbine prodding her ribs, Pink was herded off to one side. Anne and Sally were grabbed gruffly by both the arms and pushed to stand before Edward Blankenship.

Prancing and curveting on a big bay stallion, Edward Blankenship cajoled his mount to stand beside Anne. Sally shrieked when he zinged saber from scabbard, swinging the blade as if to lop Anne’s head clean off, stopping short to let the honed edge hover one scant inch from her neck. Knees buckling, Anne remained upright only with the rough support of the soldier holding her steady.

“This one,” Blankenship said, lightly touching the saber tip to Anne’s forehead, just above the right brow, tracing a diagonal line across her face, mirroring the scar on his own. “I’ll have her bound, gagged, and placed on my horse.”

One of the soldiers pulled a dirty rag from his pocket, stretching it tight to cut the corners of Anne’s mouth. Another bound her wrists with a length of rough hemp rope.

“Cowards! Preying on helpless women!” Sally struggled against her captor’s grip, kicking and wriggling. “Lickin’ the arse of this devil…” she shouted. “Can ye no’ see he’s a mad, twisted devil?”

Leaping from his saddle, Blankenship tossed off his helmet and marched up to Sally. “I am a devil of your mistress’s making,” he shouted, ripping the kerchief aside for all to see his horribly scared and mangled face, “come to you straight from the maw of this hell.” Pulling a fist, he punched Sally so hard in the stomach, she dropped to her knees, coughing and gasping for breath.

Pink pushed past her guard, and ran to crouch beside Sally. Blankenship brushed the dirt from his retrieved helmet and retied his kerchief to mask the worst of his injuries as his men hurried to hoist Anne onto his horse. Swinging up behind her, the Captain ordered his company to remount and re-form. Bound, gagged, and caught in the vise of Blankenship’s arms and legs, Anne looked as sad and helpless as a rag doll caught in a mongrel’s mouth.

Pink cried out, “Where’re you taking her?”

His scarred mouth twisted into an odd half smile, half snarl, and Blankenship called, “You can tell him I’ve taken her to the Provost Marshall in New York. The traitor Anne Merrick will answer there for her crimes.” Raising his hand in command, he led the company wheeling to the east and they galloped into the glare of the rising sun.

Sally clutched her middle, keening and sobbing. “There’s no savin’ our Annie… Blankenship will see that she swings…”

“Moans and wailings mend nothing…” Pink held out her hands. “Come on.”

“The monster has Annie in his grip.” Sally stumbled to her feet. “You can see it in his eye—his heart’s turned black and bitter as gall… There’s no hope.”

“There’s always hope.” Pink pulled Sally to the wagon. “Th’ man coulda kilt th’ three of us with a snap of his fingers—but he din’t, did he? No—he give us a message for Jack—and there’s the hope.” She hopped onto the driver’s seat, and pulled Sally up to sit beside her. With a click of her tongue, Pink gave the reins a snap and a tug, turning the horses back toward the road.

“Hold tight—for we’re goin’ to fly like a feather on the wind.”

NINETEEN

You have already equaled, and in many instances excelled, the savages of either Indies; and if you have yet a cruelty in store, you must have imported it, unmixed with every human material, from the original ware-house of Hell.

T
HOMAS
P
AINE
,
The American Crisis

A
S
B
LACK AS
H
ELL

Anne lay flat on her back, centered inside the Captain’s tent, staring up at the tin bottom of the lantern hanging from the ridgepole. Bound wrists resting on her stomach, she wiggled her bare toes to encourage circulation beyond her tightly bound ankles. With a groan, she rolled into a curl on her side, the movement of the items hidden in her pocket shifting to slide over her hip, giving her comfort.

Stretching her bound arms out, she inched forward, ever so slightly, toward the pair of saddlebags Edward Blankenship left behind.
There’s a knife in there…

She lifted her head and looked out the wide-open tent flaps at the company of dragoons gathered around a cheery campfire, having their supper. With half his face covered in a black kerchief, Edward Blankenship sat on a campstool precisely positioned for a clear view inside his brightly lit tent, his eye never wavering as, machinelike, he shoveled in his supper, hand to mouth, as if synchronized to the beat of a drum.

Anne flipped to lie on her back again, preferring the bottom of the
lantern to her captor’s unceasing gaze. “Always watching,” she muttered. “If I had a knife, I would cut his good eye out for relief.”

Huffing a sigh, she stretched her arms toward the lantern, clenching and unclenching fists. Her backside and legs ached from the full day’s hard ride astride in the saddle, wedged in the small space between the upward slope of the cantle and Edward Blankenship’s hard body.

He’d removed the awful gag when the company clambered aboard the ferry to cross the Delaware, saying, “One peep from you, and I’ll cut your throat.” Not wanting to do or say anything to trigger the rage he’d exhibited with Sally, Anne kept her mouth shut. Other than single-word, necessary directives, his threat was the extent of their communication during the whole long ride.