TW10 The Hellfire Rebellion NEW (8 page)

"It would make the Fundamentalists ecstatic," Andre said.

"Maybe that's why he never came out and said it." Delaney replied. "He didn't want what he was saying to be reduced to some simplistic dogma for the reassurance of the ignorant. When Einstein made that statement, newspaper headlines all over the world blared 'Einstein believes in God!' Nobody ever really understood Einstein, either. It's a funny thing. Every now and then, someone comes along who gets a brilliant insight into what might be the Ultimate Truth and people either misinterpret them or try to shut them up. Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake. Galileo was made to recant. By the time Einstein came around, they'd grown more clever. They simply made him into some sort of amiable genius, too complicated for anyone to understand, an stuck him in a university where he could do no harm. Mensinger made it simple for them. He committed suicide."

"Tea's on." said Hunter, coming in from the kitchen. "You guys find the warp grenade I hid inside the chamberpot?"

"Very funny," said Lucas.

"You know, the Lucas Priest I remember had a sense of humor," Hunter said.

"Maybe that was in my first life." Lucas said.

"Better," Hunter said. "But still not up to your old standard. Look, you guys have all my weapons, you've got my warp disc. I'm stuck here if I don't play ball with you. And don't forget, trust is a two-way street. I've also got to trust you to live up to your end of the deal when this is over."

"And do you?" Andre said.

Hunter shrugged. "What have I got to lose?"

"Quite a lot, if we decide to call your bluff and put you through interrogation." Lucas said. "You could wind up a vegetable."

"Maybe," Hunter said, nodding. “And if it was up to your friend Steiger, perhaps that's exactly what would happen. But it’s not his call, it's Forester's. And I think I can trust that man."

"Why?" said Delaney, curious.

"Because he looks a man right in the eyes and doesn't make him want to look away. Because he tolerates a slob like you under his command. Because he's out to break up the Network when he could just as easily go along with it and take his cut or simply sit back and do nothing, because the Network isn't really endangering the timeline. They're only out to make some dirty bucks. But mostly because I saw his face when you mentioned Drakov."

Hunter paused a moment and they were all silent.

"There was a lot of pain there," Hunter continued. 'And a man who knows that kind of pain doesn't go around inflicting it.”

Delaney gave him a long look. "You don't miss much, do you?"

"Just part of being a survivor, pilgrim." Hunter said. 'How do you take your tea?"

Just as The Bunch of Grapes was the favorite gathering place of the Sons of Liberty, so the Peacock Tavern was a Tory bar. Boston was becoming polarized. Its citizens preferred the company of like-minded thinkers and although no one was very happy with the actions of the ministry and Parliament, there were still many who considered themselves loyal Englishmen and sought a rapprochement with Britain. Among them were men who held offices as tax commissioners and customs officials, merchants who were alarmed over the increasing talk of a boycott of British goods, and citizens who were outraged by the actions of the mobs of rioters who roamed the streets and gathered in the Common and in the taverns on the waterfront.

"They speak of liberty and property." said Thomas Brown. sarcastically. "The mob always shouts those words when they're about to tear down a house. And they are allowed to do so with impunity. You know, the governor heard that Macintosh was the leader of the mob that wrecked Hutchinson's home, so he sent Greenleaf out to bring him in. The sheriff arrested the blackguard, but the Sons of Liberty gave him an ultimatum. They sent a group of men to tell him that unless Macintosh was immediately released, not one man would volunteer to join the patrols the Town Meeting had voted to send out in order to prevent the rioting. I was at the council meeting when Greenleaf made his report to Hutchinson. The result? The man was released. And now he crows about it to anyone who'll listen! I ask you, of what use are the patrols if the rioters can so easily intimidate them?"

"I heard that Governor Bernard has offered a reward of three hundred pounds to any man who will identify the leader of the rioters," said Hewitt. "Needless to say, it isn't Macintosh they're after. They realize the cobbler is nothing but a tool. Bernard and Hutchinson both know that Adams is behind it all, yet not one man can be found to come forward and give evidence against him, not even for three hundred pounds!"

"Having seen what they did to Hutchinson, not to mention Oliver. Hallowell, and Story, would you come forward to give evidence?" said Moffat. "To be sure, three hundred pounds is quite a large sum to the average man, but what good are three hundred pounds when they come to tear your house down in the middle of the night?"

"There is no law in Boston anymore," said Brown, bitterly. "The mobs grow bolder by the day."

"I must admit that appears true," said Drakov. "Why, the very day that I arrived, I saw them put a party of Royal Navy men to flight with rocks and bricks."

"A press gang," said Hewitt, sourly. "I can feel little sympathy for such its they. Nor can any here, I'll warrant."

"I will not dispute the point," said Drakov. "I was merely commenting upon the boldness of the mob, to go up against armed men of the King's Navy. And it took but a nod from Samuel Adams."

"You mean you actually heard Adams give the order?" Hewitt said.

"Well, not in so many words." said Drakov. "I was present in the tavern when that man, Furlong, was impressed. Adams was them, too, with a group of his companions. I saw him give a nod to them and they quietly left the tavern. Moments later, a mob had been assembled upon Hancock's Wharf to rescue the man who'd been impressed. I was impressed myself, so to speak that it could have all been done so quickly."

Brown smiled. "No surprise there, Mr. Dark." he said. "Sam Adams has many friends among those who work the docks. He plays to their sympathies and plys them with drink, no great matter for one who owns a brewery, and if a man be hard-pressed, why, a job can always be found for him on one of King Hancock's vessels or in one of Avery's warehouses. Grant them that, they take cam of their own."

"What do they say in London about events here?" Hewitt asked Drakov.

"They call the colonists 'rebellious children.'" Drakov said. "All good citizens of England must pay taxes. They don't see why the colonists should be exempt."

"Yes, quite." said Brown. "But try to tell that to the Sons of Liberty!"

"Sons of Liberty, indeed!" snorted Moffat. "They respect only the liberties of those who feel the way they do! Let any man speak out against them and he will soon find out what liberties he has! He'll enjoy the liberty of having a paving stone heaved through his window. Try to tell them that you have the right to disagree with them and they will demonstrate their right to break your head for you! You cannot hope to reason with such men."

"That's true enough," said Brown. "You'll not convince the Sons of Liberty with logic."

"Perhaps they can be convinced in other ways," said Drakov.

"What do you mean?" asked Hewitt.

"I was thinking of the headless horseman," Drakov said.

"What?" said Brown. "A headless horseman, did you say?"

"Yes, haven't you heard?" said Drakov. "Moffat here was telling me about it just this morning."

"What's this about a headless horseman, Moffat?"

"Then you haven't heard'?" said Moffat. "It's been the talk of all the taverns on the waterfront. A tale of a ghost rider, gentleman, a specter with no head who rides the streets of Boston after dark."

"What manner of nonsense is this?" said Brown.

"I report only what I hear, gentlemen." said Moffat. "It seems that the other night. Ebenezer Macintosh and some of his fellow so-called Sons of Liberty received what one might call a visitation Macintosh, so the word goes, was raving drunkenly when a jack-o-lantern came crashing through the tavern window and knocked him from his chair."

"No, really?" Hewitt said, grinning.

"The broken window was real enough," said Moffat. "I saw them fixing it myself."

"Go on," said Brown. "What happened then?"

"Well," said Moffat, "it seems that Macintosh and his friends ran out into the street to see who'd done it. They were ready to break heads, I gather, but instead, so the story goes, they all got the fright of their lives. The street appeared deserted, with no sign of whoever had thrown the pumpkin through the window. They looked all around, but there was simply no one there."

"The fellow ran off," said Hewitt.

"Be quiet. John." said Brown. "Let Moffat tell it."

"As I said, the street appeared deserted." Moffat continued, "when suddenly.

they all heard the sound of hoofbeats and a rider came galloping at them from out of nowhere. A rider dressed all in black, on a black horse. A rider, gentlemen,
who had no head.
"

“No head, you say'?" said Hewitt, frowning. “Balderdash!"

"Macintosh does not think that it was balderdash." said Moffat.

"The man was obviously drunk." said Hewitt. "He was seeing things."

"Then all who were with him shared the same delusion." Moffat said. "They all swore that it was true."

A crowd had guthered around their table to listen as Moffat went on with the story.

"The rider came galloping straight at them, so they said, as if to run them down. They scattered and the rider galloped past, then reined in and turned his horse and came at them again. Jeb Stiles wasn't quick enough to get out of the way. he was struck solid by the rider's horse. I hear it broke his ribs."

"That's true!" said someone in the crowd. "His wife told me he couldn't finish mending my chair because his ribs were broken! She said he'd been struck down in the street by a horseman!"

“Go on, go on!" said someone else. "What happened then?"

"The headless horseman reined in once again and his black stallion reared up." said Moffat, playing to the crowd. "They heard him laugh. A wild, screeching laughter that echoed through the night! Ransome Howard drew his knife and threw it at the rider. And all who were there said they saw it pass right through him, as if he wasn't there!"

"He simply missed." said Hewitt, skeptically. though he too had become caught up in the story.

"Howard never misses!" someone in the crowd said "He's deadly with that knife of his. I've seen him pin a squirrel right to a tree!"

Others who'd seen Howard throw his knife attested to his skill with it.

"So then what happened'?" someone in the crowd said.

"Well," said Moffat, "they say the headless rider screeched like a soul being torn apart in Hell and came galloping straight at them once again. And an instant before he was upon them, both horse and rider vanished into thin air right before their eyes!"

"Vanished, did you say!"

"Disappeared like smoke." said Moffat.

"A ghost!" said someone in the crowd.

"Since when do ghosts break people's ribs?" asked Hewitt.

"No, that's true enough, they don't,” said Drakov. ”And I, for one, do not believe in ghosts."

"Nor I," said Hewitt. "It all sounds like some silly schoolboy's tale to me."

"Perhaps." said Drakov. "But then Moffat here said they swore it was all true."

"And so they did." said Moffat. "Ben tits said he'd swear it on the Bible."

"Then how do you account for it?" said Hewitt. "Well, it's true enough they had been drinking," Moffat said with a shrug. And think on it, would a manas proud of his knife-throwing as Ransome Howard admit it if he'd missed?"

The people in the crowd around them nodded and murmured among themselves.

"But you said they saw the horseman vanish like a ghost!" said someone in the crowd.

"So they said." admitted Moffat. "For my own part. I cannot attest to the truth or falsity of that, since I was not there myself."

"Then how do you explain it?" someone said.

"Yes." said someone else, "one drunken man can have his eyes play tricks on him, but you say they all saw the same thing."

"Well, so they
say
," said Drakov. "But then, gentlemen, consider the alternative."

"What do you mean?" asked Brown.

You all tell me what a bold and swaggering lot the ruffians who call themselves the Sons of Liberty have become," said Drakov. "And how many of them were there that night, five, six, more? And doubtless, there were those present in the tavern who were not among their number, and who prudently chose to remain inside rather than risk being caught up in a brawl out in the street. Yet they saw that someone had thrown that pumpkin through the window, knocking Macintosh down to the floor. And they doubtless heard the commotion in the street, and then saw Stiles being carried back inside with his ribs all busted up. What were the gallant Sons of Liberty to say, that six or more of them were bested by one man?

That one man put them all to flight?"

The crowd murmured its agreement.

"Even so, Dark," said Hewitt, "why should they concoct such an outrageous story? Why not simply claim they were outnumbered?"

"Perhaps," said Drakov, "because there was a witness or two who were not among their number, not members of the Sons of Liberty, that is to say, who were outside with them and could assert that they were only up against one man. And.

gentlemen, let us ask ourselves, if what they saw was not, in fact, a spirit of some sort, then what must they have seen? A man dressed all in black, on horseback, perhaps with his cloak pulled up so that they could not see his face?

Is it not possible that rather than vanish, he merely galloped quickly down some convenient alleyway when they scattered before his horse, so that he only seemed to disappear?"

"That sounds much more plausible to me than the idea of some ghost." said Hewitt. "In which case, bravo to that man! Let us drink a toast to him!"

"Hear, hear!" said a few people in the crowd.