“ Thank you, good sir,” said the Dutchman, doffing his hat as he dropped the coins into a purse he kept on a long string around his neck. “And now, I bid you farewell.”
“ Good luck in your business,” said Jake. “Until we meet again.”
“ I’d get rid of the hat if I were you,” were van Clynne’s parting words.
The city of Montreal lies at the foot of Mount Royal on a strategic island in the St. Lawrence. The great French explorer Jacques Cartier discovered it and claimed it for the greater glory and profit of the French kingdom in 1535, though it was not until 1642 that white men made a lasting settlement. The profit in question was largely spiritual, with the Association of Montreal formed by Sieur Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve aiming squarely at converting the heathen and adding their population to heaven.
The French, and their Jesuit priests especially, felt a special calling to promulgate the Word in the wilderness, baptizing freely and spreading the spirit of Christianity by whatever means necessary. Smallpox was not meant to be one of those means, but it was nonetheless distributed more quickly and efficiently than the scriptures.
Jeffrey Amherst took Montreal for the British in 1760. Robert Montgomery took it for the Americans in 1775. By the fall of 1776, Benedict Arnold and his tattered band of disease-ravaged soldiers had given it back, abandoning it in disarray.
By that time Jake was already hard at work for General Greene in New York. After being wounded at Quebec in late December 1775, he’d been evacuated to a makeshift hospital. There he’d refused to let the surgeon take off his leg, preferring death to life as a cripple. His stubbornness had cost him great suffering, but Jake had gambled that he could survive the wound without infection or complication, and won. In truth, the decision had been made at least partly from the wild despair of having seen his friend Captain Thomas and then General Montgomery die but a few yards from him on the battlefield. For a dark moment Jake Stewart Gibbs had not truly cared whether he lived or died.
A great deal of time had passed since then. Jake shifted himself on his horse as he rode along the St. Lawrence, fighting off the sad memories as he steadied himself for the tasks ahead. He decided to promote himself from druggist to doctor — his new cover story would proclaim him a country physician heading to the big city for supplies. Jake, though not specifically trained as a doctor, knew a good portion of medicine from his family’s trade and his own studies of natural philosophy. He could not only fool any soldiers who questioned him: he could probably treat them better than the military quacks at their camps.
The only deficiency in his story was his dress. As the British sergeant had pointed out, he looked a bit too much the gentleman to be the rough traveler. He adjusted his appearance by loosening his shirt and removing the eagle feather stuck in his cap, but a wary mind at the city’s fort could easily find questions for which vague answers would be his only reply.
Which was one reason he didn’t intend on going straight in the front door, at least not tonight. Another was the fact that he was tired and hungry, and it was already quite late. The last, and most important, reason was that he was hoping to renew an old acquaintance.
“ Jesu — back from the dead!” exclaimed Marie Sacre when she opened the door.
“ Comment vas-tu? ” he replied in a bashful and rusty French.
“ Tres bien. But my God, I never expected to see you! Zut!
“ Can a poor traveler enter?”
“ Of course!” Marie’s hair was held back in a simple, almost frontier style, but the thick, smooth material of her mauve-colored dress hinted that she was not merely a plain farmer’s wife. The smooth cotton flattered her shape and at the same time was warm and comforting.
“ Comme les francais sont amiables!” said Jake. The French are so easy.
“ Don’t get fresh,” she said, pulling him along into the front room of the large, two-story brick building.
As Jake took a step onto the wide-beamed floor, a long narrative of his journey formed on his tongue. He was just able to cut it off when he saw the room was not empty.
Not at all. Its occupant rose from his chair, dressed in the bright red jacket favored by followers of His Royal Majesty, the King of England.
“ Captain Clark, let me introduce you to my cousin, Jake Gibson,” said Marie, putting her arm on his shoulder as she amended his name. “Jake is quite a traveler. He’s just come from Quebec.”
“ Indirectly,” said Jake, his only option to play along with what she said.
“ Then you must have seen Burgoyne!” exclaimed the British captain, taking his hand and pumping it like a glassblower’s bellows with a strong, crushing grip.
“ I left before he arrived,” said Jake, hoping that made sense — and that he wouldn’t have to be more specific. “I had business with the savages.”
“ We don’t call them savages anymore,” said Marie in the light but firm voice one used to correct a child. “They are allies.”
“ What business are you in?” asked the captain.
“ I am a doctor of sorts,” said Jake, looking at Marie to make sure she heard — and agreed.
“ Of sorts?”
“ In the backwoods one handles many things. One learns many things,” said Jake, warming now to the task of fooling and then pumping this Captain Clark for information. “I have these past few months been contemplating the efficacy of a rattlesnake cure. I learned of it from a Jesuit, who told me the Huron swore by it as a cure for many diseases, including cancer and pox.”
“ Inoculation works against the pox,” said the soldier.
“ Not in all cases. The humor must be properly balanced.”
Marie disappeared into the other room. Jake settled in a chair next to the fire, warming himself. His face and manner were nonchalant, but beneath the facade he was coiled and ready to strike. His pocket pistol was charged, though he wasn’t sure even all four of his bullets could fell the large man across from him. Fortunately, the officer appeared unarmed, without even his sword. Obviously, he was on very friendly terms with the house’s occupant — a fact which not only surprised but perturbed Jake. To find Marie cozying up to the other side wounded him more than the powerfully built redcoat ever could.
“ I thought of studying medicine myself before joining the army,” said Clark. “I still may, when I return home.”
“ Yes,” said Jake. “How long since you left England?”
“ Oh, I’ve been here for over a year. Came with Burgoyne to rout the rabble, as it were, but I was transferred to the governor’s staff. The general, of course, spent the winter in England — jolly wish I could have.”
Jake nodded. “But he’s back now.”
“ He certainly is. Thank you, my dear,” said the captain, rising as Marie returned with a tray of tea cups, along with a dish of supper for Jake.
She placed the tray on a small settee; Jake noted that she didn’t have to ask the British officer how much sugar he wanted when dropping in the lumps.
“ It looks to me your cousin wants something stronger than tea,” said the captain when Jake didn’t take his cup.
“ My system is allergic to tea,” said Jake.
Marie turned the harsh undertone to his voice aside as lightly as a compliment. “Oh, I’ve forgotten, cousin, about your unbalanced humors. How silly of me. Would you like some coffee instead?”
“ No.”
“ Good, because I haven’t any.” She laughed. “I’ll get the rum.”
“ Allergic to tea?” said the officer. “You sound like a rebel.”
He was joking, but Jake wasn’t. “And what if I do?”
The captain didn’t take up the challenge, tut-tutting as he sipped from the delicate china cup. “Meant nothing by it, my friend. You’ll have to forgive me; being a soldier one sometimes finds jokes at other people’s expense too easily. My brother is allergic to cats, actually. Quite the thing — put one in a room with him and in two minutes he’s sneezing a storm. The devil must spend the day outside his door to catch his soul at some unguarded moment.”
Marie, standing at the door, shook her head sternly, warning Jake off. In any event, the captain proved unprovocable and skillfully evasive. An hour’s worth of fishing failed to produce anything useful.
