simply failed to make his points clearly enough? Was he somehow responsible for the defeat?
The moody recriminations clouded Jake's vision, and blinded him for a long while to the curl of smoke that rose around the farm in the distance, an ugly black vine tangling upwards, not from a hearth but from staved-in roof beams crying with the unstaunchable sorrow of death, unjustly delivered.
By the time Jake realized what it was, he had already unconsciously turned toward the farm and urged the horse to a gallop, though even the animal must have known it was too late.
Chapter Three
The Indians who lived in the areas near Albany were predominantly Iroquoian and had long had contact, for better or worse, with the white man. The predominant group was the Six Nations, a strong confederation whose main tribe near Albany was called by the English 'Mohawks,' a name which also applied to the river and the valley that ended at the falls Jake had so recently admired.
'Mohawk' was a somewhat unfortunate though accurate appellation, applied not by the tribe itself but by Algonquin peoples nearby with whom they had warred for many years. Loosely translated, it meant 'man eaters.' The term was literal, and while it failed to capture the nuances of the religious ceremonies that involved the act, it was nonetheless an appropriate indication of the ferocity of the Mohawk world. Their universe was different than the whites'; dreams and nightmares were still literally true, and the dead stepped seamlessly from one life to another, status in the next determined largely by bravery and stoic fortitude in this one.
Jake was looking at one of their nightmares now. A small farmstead, set in a small hollow amid no more than twenty cleared acres a good mile from the main road, had been ambushed and set ablaze by raiders within the past day. Little more than a cottage, the house had only one hearth and chimney; its stones towered now above the caved-in roof timbers. The front and far side wall were both tumbled down and burnt. A jagged edge of the back wall remained, three-quarters the height it had stood until yesterday. A quilt still hung at one end, and next to it, a sideboard with a set of earthen dishes untouched by the flames. A broom was propped on one side, its straw head barely singed, as if waiting for the owner to set about the daily chores.
This had been a very poor farm, with no outbuildings to speak of, a lean-to a few yards from the house apparently serving as the barn. That too had been destroyed, pulled down and flattened by fire. The settlers' well stood between the two structures. Jake eased his horse gently toward it, knowing what he would find there.
The hole was narrow, with an irregular wooden wall at the top. An arm of the dead man's body had caught on a side board, hanging the body in a pose that made it seem as if he were trying to climb up. His face gazed toward heaven, frozen in the shape of his dying thought — Why?
Jake led his horse back to the house and dismounted, tying it to a board. The beast protested loudly and shook its head, as if warning Jake away from the ghosts that surely inhabited the site. Its cries were so adamant he feared it would harm itself; Jake undid the rein and brought it over to the remains of the lean-to, where the animal consented to wait more calmly, commenting on the scene with sad, soft nickers.
The dead man was not quite middle aged. He had been robbed of his shoes, but otherwise his clothing was so poor and tattered that it had obviously been left by the raiders as worthless. Nor had he been well-fed — Jake had no trouble lifting him and carrying him to the front of the house.
Several large stains of blood marked his chest. He had been scalped; a piece of skin flapped back on his skull as he was set down. Jake had to tilt the head to get the skin to stay in place. He closed the man's eyes, and said a short, simple prayer he'd been taught as a youngster.
Prudence dictated that he leave the house immediately, since it was possible whoever had attacked it was watching it still. But Jake wasn't listening to prudence at the moment. Though grimly alert, he was concerned with giving the dead man a decent burial. He was also aware, as he scanned the remains of the homestead that the man had lived here with his wife — a soiled bonnet was among the ruins.
He found her three or four yards into the woods, the back of her simple dress decorated with large blood stains. Jake was surprised to see her long black hair still intact; he would have thought it quite a prize.
He was even more surprised to see the body move.
At first it seemed an optical illusion. Jake looked quickly around the field, half-expecting a trap, as if the warriors had some way of poking the body from afar to distract him.
Seeing nobody, he looked back down. The body moved again, ever so slightly. The woman was alive.
Jake turned her over gently. A gurgle of blood passed from her lips. He brushed the caked dirt and mud away gently from her face. The skin was soft but brittle, death already stealing in. There could be no hope for her.
Looking more carefully at the woods around her, he realized that she had crawled here from several yards away, apparently having hid after she was shot. But her survival meant only that she had delayed death by an hour or two.
'Who did this?' he asked.
To his great surprise, she murmured something in response. Jake pulled her up closer to hear. The light, under-nourished body belonged more to the next life than this; he felt as if he were intruding in heaven.
'Can you tell me who attacked you? Were they Mohawks?'
But the dying woman had other priorities. 'My baby,' she said, 'in the cellar.'
The effort to voice these small words wore on her severely; she slumped in his arms. Jake realized she didn't have enough strength even to be moved; she might last another minute or two at most. Gently he picked her head off his lap and, with his coat as a pillow, placed it on the ground.
He ran to the cabin quickly, resolved to show her lingering soul that her baby was still alive. All other thoughts temporarily abandoned, he flew to the ruins like a mythological bird of prey, possessed by an unworldly power. Though the embers were still hot, he tossed them aside, feeling nothing.
It was not easy to find the opening, especially with the ruins of the house on top of it. Jake pulled and poked at the floorboards, trying a good three quarters of them before finally discovering the one that led to the subterranean chamber.
Or hole. The space below was barely the size of a chest, which explained, perhaps, why the woman had not tried to hide there herself.
It was empty, except for a small, soiled blanket where the baby had lain.
Technically speaking, Lt. Col. Gibbs was guilty of a great dereliction of duty. Considering the weight Schuyler, through his deputy Colonel Flanagan, had placed on the mission to Canada, Jake's decision to pursue the child's abductors was nearly a direct betrayal of his oath as an officer.
From the point of prudence, it was lunacy. Assuming he was correct and the raiders were a Mohawk scouting party headed or motivated by British troops, they would be well armed and would outnumber him at least six or eight to one. Even if he could somehow overwhelm them, little of military value would be gained; complete and utter victory would only delay him from his more important goal.
Yet Jake could not help himself. As a professional spy and soldier, he was not supposed to be motivated by anger. Indeed, if you had stopped him now, as he pushed his horse ever deeper through the woods after burying the husband and wife in a shallow grave, he could have cited many instances when he had postponed revenge for the good of the Cause, when he had let slights and injustices, cold murder among them, pass so that Freedom might be achieved in the end.
But had you been able to stop him — had you been able to draw near enough to see his face — you would have realized here was a man possessed. Here was a man who wanted nothing except the return of that small baby, and would not be stopped, not even by the direct command of His Excellency George Washington himself, until he rescued it.
The path the raiders had taken was obvious enough, if you knew what to look for. A trail jutted out of the woods at the west end of the clearing; Jake noticed some gunpowder among the broken branches. A few yards deep into the forest he came upon some loose dirt and footprints which the murderers had not bothered to erase.
Though Jake had many talents, he was not in the true sense a woodsman. Had he been, he would have read
