Elizabeth ’s hands were shaking, and she shuffled quickly through the papers. Wait Dunmore, father of Frederick. Wait Dunmore, son of Isaac Dunmore. Was Isaac the illegitimate son of Richard and the slave girl Nancy?
The record of his birth. It was there, in her hands. Isaac Dunmore. Father, Richard Dunmore. Mother… Anne Dunmore, born Anne Hutchinson of Boston.
And that was it. No mention of the slave Nancy, nothing but a record of a legitimate child of white parents. Elizabeth looked up at Billy, who was still looking at the paper. She felt the tears of frustration welling up. “Oh, Billy, damn it…”
“Well, I suppose it would not be likely they would make an official record of such a union…,” he began, but there was frustration in his voice as well. Disappointment.
And then a creak, the creak of the side door, left unlocked, the same creak it had made when they had opened it. Billy’s eyes met Elizabeth ’s and she felt no disappointment or frustration now, just fear, and a twist in her stomach, and on Billy’s face, alertness; like a deer, he was motionless, listening.
A footstep on wooden planking. Billy blew out the two candles and clapped the shutter half over the open lantern and the room was almost black and he motioned with his head for her to follow.
Elizabeth snatched up the papers, the Dunmore family record, and she shoved them down the front of her shift, though she did not know why, for they would do her no good. Still, she took them, felt the rough paper against her skin as she pushed them out of sight.
Billy stepped into the narrow hall, put the half-closed lantern down on the floor. It lit up the pine boards on which it sat, and threw a diffused illumination out toward the church.
They could hear them now, two men, footsteps, soft muttering. Billy stopped, held up his hand, but still Elizabeth nearly ran into him before she saw his dark shape. She could just make out his hands as he flipped his black cape back so that the cloth did not impede his arms, but he did not draw a weapon, as if he was still not certain these people were enemies.
Elizabeth did not see how they could be anything but.
An observation, muttered, but loud enough for them to hear. “I sees light. Down there.” A pause and then another voice saying, “Easy, now, easy. Cold steel…”
The floor creaked and that was followed by a long pause as the men approaching stopped, waited, listened, just as Billy and Elizabeth were doing. Step, creak, pause; it seemed to go on forever.
Slowly, slowly, Billy drew his sword from his scabbard. Elizabeth could see his hand moving as he drew, could catch the occasional flicker of light on the blade. There were no windows in the Reverend’s office, no door save for that through which they had come. They had no route of escape other than that one hall.
At the far end, against the gloom of the church’s darkness, Elizabeth could see a shape, a moving blackness. She heard the light tap of metal on metal, heard the shape gasp in surprise and then Billy Bird threw open the shutter of the lantern with the tip of his sword.
The light spilled out, illuminated the big man blocking the way: bearded, in the rough clothes of a laborer, a battered three-cornered hat on his head, a sword in his hand, a big, meaty weapon, the kind of blade preferred by a man who fights with brute force and little subtlety.
“God damn!” the man shouted in surprise. Crooked black teeth, gaps in places where others were missing.
Billy Bird sprang forward, his sword in his right hand, his left hand crossing his belly and then his dirk was in that fist, long blade and short. He came at the big man and lunged and would have run him through if the man had not all but fallen backward in surprise.
“God damn!” he shouted again, higher pitched, but he recovered fast and came at Billy with his big sword, swinging it with two hands like an ax, and Billy was just able to whip his own sword out of the big weapon’s arc before the heavy blade struck and perhaps snapped his finer steel in two.
Billy Bird was fast, nimble, like a dancer, and he lunged as the big man was off balance and got a solid jab in the man’s upper arm and the man howled and stumbled back again. Behind him, the second man, smaller, more wiry, teeth and clothes no better, stepped up and Billy engaged him with dirk and sword.
Elizabeth looked wildly around, looked for some weapon, something she could use to help Billy. She had nothing, no knife, no pistol.
She had deliberately resisted carrying any weapon; to do so was to admit to herself that they were doing something wrong. And now perhaps Billy would be overwhelmed, and then what would she tell herself?
She snatched up the lantern, raced after him. The smaller man was more of a swordsman than was his partner and he wielded his weapon with some finesse, made Billy work at defending himself, not giving away openings like the other, who was staring dumb at the blood soaking through his sleeve.
The little man slashed down and Billy caught his sword with the edge of his own, twisted his wrist, locked their blades, just for that instant, and stepped into the man and thrust his dirk at him. But the little man was too fast for that and he turned sideways and freed his sword and stepped back, ready.
The other one, the bigger one, was done staring at his wound. Elizabeth heard a growl building in his throat and it turned into a shout as the man charged, lumbering forward, coming at Billy with his sword again in two hands, and Billy might have finished him off if he did not have the smaller man to deal with as well.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God…,” Elizabeth said, again and again. She felt useless, worse than useless, but there was nothing for her to do but watch.
The big man swept his sword down as if he were chopping at a tree and Billy ducked, hit the floor, his cape making a great flourish, rolled with a grace that left Elizabeth gaping, the big man swinging at air, and the little man dodging his partner’s blade. Then Billy was up and over one of the pews.
It took the big one a second to understand where Billy had gone, how he had vanished from under his sword. He looked over, surprised, as if Billy had disappeared and rematerialized beyond the pew.
He came at Billy again with the same heedless fury, slamming his knees into the pew and slashing down, and this time Billy ducked to one side and the heavy blade shattered the top of the pew, embedding itself in the wood. Billy slapped the hilt of his sword down on top of the blade, preventing the man from lifting it up. Then with his dirk he lunged and this time he caught the startled man in the stomach, sunk an inch of steel into his flesh, made him bellow like a bull, but the reach was too far for Billy to deliver a more lethal jab.
The small man watched this, unmoving for the second or two that it took. He began to circle toward Billy, more cautious than his friend, when he seemed to notice Elizabeth for the first time, and when he did he seemed at the same moment to forget entirely about Billy Bird.
“Bitch!” he hissed at her, and then he was moving toward her, sword held out, off to one side, a position that would allow him to slash her no matter which way she turned.
Two steps, three steps, and he was all but on her. She shrank back, thought of the lantern in her hand. She held the only source of light.
She slammed the shutter closed and the church was all blackness again. She pulled her mantua skirt free, buried the lantern in the cloth to hide the light leaking around the door. Fell to her knees, ducked down, shuffling away to her left. She heard the man’s sword slash the air above her head and again he said, “Bitch!” but loud, a shout.
Elizabeth backed up, crawling away at an oblique angle from the man. She could hear him kicking out, trying to locate her with his feet and his slashing sword and she crawled back until there was no place left to crawl. The lantern was resting on her thigh and through her petticoats she could feel it start to burn her. She did not know where Billy was, if he was still alive or not.
A step closer, and the man was flailing with the blade and with another step or another he would find her. She was up against the wainscot now. She gripped the lantern hard, ready to crash it into his knees when he took another step.
Then the side door burst open again and more men rushed in, making no attempt to be quiet, and Elizabeth froze and her attacker froze and no one knew who they were, or who they were for.
A voice in the darkness. “Billy Bird? Where the fuck are you?”
Elizabeth jumped to her feet, broke left, stepping sideways, her back against the wall, and when she was sure she was beyond the reach of the man’s sword she pulled the lantern out from under her skirt and flipped the door open.
The hot steel burned her fingertips, and the yellow light that flooded out revealed five men: Billy Bird, still
