Jack Absolute by C. C. Humphreys
The older man smiled. ‘Thank you.’ He paused, then added, ‘You have, of course, my permission to pay your addresses to my daughter once the Rebel is beaten and we are safe again in Boston. We shall look forward to receiving you, sir. Good night.’
With that, he turned into his tent and the flap dropped behind him.
Jack stared stupidly at it for fully half a minute. ‘Addresses,’ he muttered, at last, turning away. ‘The only thing I intend to address just now is Edward Pillow’s Pellew.’
– TWELVE –
Cowboys and Skinners
Mist shrouded the farrier’s camp, rendering horses and men insubstantial, solidifying only at three paces. The swirls had not lessened since before dawn; Jack knew, for he had been awake since an hour before it, despite the distracting comfort of Pellew’s pillow. There had been too many things to do before departure, items to gather, a man to talk to.
That man, Sergeant Willis, had made the journey to New York and back already. His information would be vital. And when Jack had approached him in that darkest hour of the night, though at first he seemed the epitome of a taciturn Dorsetman, barely grunting in response to comments on the weather and questions as to his sleep, he became positively voluble on the subject of the road ahead.
‘Trust to yourself, Cap’n, and no other.’ He was pulling at a loose thread on the front of his dark green coat. Like Jack, in his freshly issued clothes, the Sergeant was dressed as a civilian. ‘The country abounds with gangs, and though the Cowboys are meant to be Loyalist and the Skinners side with the Rebel, there’s nowt to tell the two apart. They’ll turn coats on a whim, ’specially if they scent gold. So carry coin in different pockets, use it if ye must, and allus keep your pistols primed. Best stay clear altogether, lookee, carry or find your own food and make camp in the woods. Do you know the country at all, sir?’
Jack nodded. Though he and Até had usually trapped and warred and hunted further north, there’d been times when they’d followed these trails.
‘You’ll want to ride the lower slopes of the Catskills. Closer you gets to the Hudson the more Rebels you’ll meet. Circle high and skirt the villages of Altamont, down through Schoharie, Greenville, Cairo, Kingston …’ He took a stick and scratched shapes in the mud. Then he rubbed his boot across them and continued. ‘If General Clinton has begun his attack, ye might catch up with him near his targets, the Highland forts. If he hasn’t … try to get across the Hudson to Tarrytown. There’s a ferry on the west bank. Ride down the eastern shore. Then you’ll have to steal a boat and row across to the city of New York.’
A farrier brought Willis’s horse to him. As he checked the girth, Jack asked, ‘Do you know how many men Clinton will attack with?’
For the first time Jack saw something stir within the man’s guarded gaze. ‘I know that’s General Burgoyne’s most important question. But I am just a sergeant. I am trusted with letters only and no information that might spill out of my head.’ Satisfied with his horse, he turned and saluted, adding, ‘Good luck to ye, sir.’
Jack reached out his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, the man took it. ‘And good luck to you, Sergeant Willis. Perhaps we’ll meet again in New York.’
The man mounted before he spoke again. ‘Ye never know. Though if two of us were to make it through, it’d be something akin to a miracle. Yah!’ Spurring his horse, he parted the mists and was gone.
That had been six hours before. The time since Jack had spent gathering supplies. Scrounging objects tradable from his friends he’d gone to the Indian camp and bargained hard for cornmeal, maple sugar, and some rolls of birch bark. When he’d returned to the stables, the Earl of Balcarras was awaiting him there and had given him two fine pistols with Lazarino barrels and horse holsters to hold them. And then he’d presented Jack with the horse to mount them on.
‘His name’s Doughty and he never falters.’ He’d patted the shoulder of the great bay gelding, full sixteen hands of him, who’d curled his neck around to nuzzle at the Earl’s hands. ‘He’ll carry one across three counties to run down a fox. So he’ll carry you with ease to the island of Manhattan.’
‘And back again, Sandy. I’ll return him to you. I cannot thank you enough.’
The Earl had smiled sadly, wished him Godspeed, and left. Captain Money was the next visitor, bearing Burgoyne’s dispatch, concealed in a secret chamber within a water canteen. He also noted down all that Jack could remember of Benedict Arnold and his men. Money had then, in his dual role of Assistant Quartermaster, issued Jack with a fusil – one of the light and precious .65 calibres; Burgoyne had obviously given orders that Jack was to be well armed – and a hunk of equally precious bacon, as well as oats, this latter making up the bulk of his possessions. He could always find food for himself in the forest, but not necessarily fodder for the animals. He finally handed over a variety of coins, gold and silver, for purchases and bribes as the occasion arose.
The horse was saddled and the fustian haversacks slung by a quarter of noon. He paced as he waited, Doughty seeming as anxious to depart as he, hoofing the earth before him.
‘Straight up midday is what I said,’ Jack muttered, trying to broach the mists in the direction of the main camp. Then he wondered if, perhaps, the General had somehow managed to resist Louisa’s assault and refuse her. He wasn’t sure if it was disappointment or hope he felt at the thought.
Yet her horse, a pretty, blue-black filly, was already accoutred with a lady’s side-saddle; straps hung ready to receive what she would need to carry. Turning back to it, Jack suddenly noticed a figure now stood at its head, fingers running down the filly’s white blaze.
‘A fine morning for our purposes, Captain Absolute,’ Louisa Reardon said.
He had not heard her approach, which surprised him since she was dressed in a dark riding dress, full purple skirts swathing her legs, which rustled now as she moved to him. Her thick red-gold hair had been tamed into a bun and in her right hand she clasped an ivory-handled riding crop.
‘You look as though you are riding to hounds, madam.’ Jack could not keep the irritation from his voice, made up of disquiet at seeing her and an attempt to hide his delight.
‘Oh tush!’ she said, striking his shoulder lightly with the crop.
‘So it seems you obtained Burgoyne’s permission.’
‘Indeed! It was not hard. The General always yields to reasoned argument.’
Jack looked at her and wondered if the General had been persuaded by more than words. He had been away a while; and Louisa was damnably attractive.
To cover the flush these thoughts brought to his face, he reached for the bag at her side. ‘Since you are under my command, madam, I must see what it is you consider so important that you will burden our horses with such baggage.’
Indeed, her bag was not huge. And she did not release it to him.
‘You would not seek to look within a lady’s purse, sir? It is not very gallant.’
Jack said nothing, just kept pulling on the haversack. Reluctant to the last, she let it go.
‘I have, or will find food for us both, madam, so you will not need this.’ He removed the bag of bread, though the warmth and scent of it made him hungry. Handing it to the grateful farrier who stood by, he delved deeper. There was only a few spare clothes, a canteen of water – again unnecessary but he let it pass – and …
‘What’s this?’ He pulled out a book with a soft, green linen cover. ‘We’ll have no time to read by day and no light to do so at night.’
Louisa regarded the book, biting her lip. ‘It is not for reading, sir, but for writing in. My diary. I have pen and ink too.’
She did. He heard them clink when he shook the bag. ‘The same goes for writing as reading. You must send this back to your maid.’
‘Please, Jack. It is a small luxury, surely. I cannot go a day without writing. I would rather give up some clothes. Here …’
She reached towards the bag then, made to reach inside. Perhaps i
He released the bag to her, handed her the diary. ‘Keep it, Louisa,’ he said. ‘Let the man tie this to your horse and we’ll be gone.’
The farrier attached the bag. They mounted, Louisa swiftly arranging her skirts around the side-saddle, her knee crooked around the horn, her feet in the single stirrup. Doughty jerked his head up and down in impatience while she did this. Jack brought the reins up tight, exerting his will.
‘Away!’ he said, and the two horses cantered into the still-thick fog. They headed down a path to the right, to the west. They would have to swoop wide to by-pass the American position on Bemis Heights and the out-flung Rebel patrols.
At last, thought Jack, thrilled with the off, with the shrouding fog, with Doughty, so vastly different from the sorry roan Benedict Arnold had lent him. The thought of that American oddity suddenly made Jack chuckle; somewhere, not very far away, Arnold was no doubt raging to all who could bear to listen about the ungrateful oath-breaker, ‘Lord John Absolute’. The chuckle became a laugh as he thought to the road ahead. A dangerous one, to be sure, but the woods were his world, especially when he was this well armed and prepared. He had a mission of import, this magnificent animal under him, and, despite some misgivings at her presence, a beautiful companion beside him. It was a joy to be alive.
That joy lasted three hundred yards, till Louisa suddenly reined in. Jack did the same, circled back.
‘Your girth, madam?’ he said, the impatience ill-concealed.
‘Shh!’ was her only reply. She was squinting into the swirls to her left. ‘I’m sure this was the tree. Nancy! Nancy!’ she hissed.
There was a sudden stirring there that had Jack reaching for a pistol, though he knew they were still well within the British lines. Then Louisa’s maid appeared. In her hands was a sack.
‘What’s this?’ Jack demanded. ‘Really, Louisa, there will be no more baggage.’
She ignored him, dismounted, then looked up. ‘Pray, hold my horse for a moment, will you?’
Jack took the proffered reins and Louisa immediately became busy with straps and cinches. In a few moments her side-saddle was on the ground and she was reaching into the sack Nancy held.
‘Now,’ said Louisa and, with a flourish worthy of a stage conjuror, produced another saddle. A gentleman’s.
‘What the …’ Jack was stunned, could only watch as the woman before him attached the new saddle as expertly as she’d removed the old. But this surprise was as nothing to his next shock. For Louisa now grabbed at her waist and swiftly undid the strings that held her dress there. Stepping out of the folds of purple cloth, she stood before him – in breeches!
He was wordless, as she took back the reins and straddled her horse, wordless still, as Nancy wrapped the side-saddle in the purple skirt and tied the whole to the last three dangling straps.
‘Now, sir,’ Louisa said, ‘why do you dally? Shall we ride?’
He watched her spur ahead of him into the mist. Wordlessly, he followed.
They rode hard most of the day, their horses seemingly tireless, though Jack took good care to walk them frequently and rest them when necessary. They followed an insubstantial trail that soon widened to parallel a small river, the Schoharie. Dusk found them on the edge of the forest just above the settlement of the same name, a dozen log cabins set among well-tended fields of ripe corn. Lamps were just being placed in windows, farmers returning from their work, beckoned by their light.
‘It looks cosy,’ Louisa said from beside him. ‘Shall we seek hospitality?’
‘I think not,’ replied Jack. ‘They may be Cowboys or Skinners or neither, but strangers rarely receive welcome this close to a war.’
He turned back beneath the trees, leading his horse. He’d noticed the tiniest of paths down a little stream. A five-minute walk and they came to an uprooted beech. A fire could be lit in its lee and never be seen.
While Louisa hobbled and nose-bagged their mounts, Jack cut the smaller, springier boughs from the felled beech and soon had them lashed together with withies into a frame. The birch-bark rolls he’d bargained for with the Indians were threaded through them and then this half-moon shelter was pegged down.
‘Even cosier than a cabin, I’d say.’ Louisa watched, as Jack slashed some sprays from a pine. ‘Where are you going to sleep?’
Jack snorted and threw the pine on to the floor of the shelter, then gestured to the forest. ‘Can you gather some firewood?’
She was back soon, with a good mix of tinder and smaller logs. From one, he pulled off a small strip of bark, rolled it into a cone, then stuffed it with dry leaves. From his pocket he produced something he’d spotted when they’d walked their horses earlier.
‘A mushroom?’ Louisa was watching him closely. ‘Is it supper?’
‘The Amada’s not for eating.’ He pulled out the inner layer of the mushroom, shoved it into the cone. ‘Hold this.’
While she did, he pulled out his strike-light. A few hits of a rifle flint against its metal and sparks fell into the centre of the cone. The mushroom skin began to smoulder.
‘Now, blow,’ he said. ‘No, gently, gently, that’s the way. Now a little harder.’
She looked up at him, her lips forming a half-smile. Then she pushed them out towards the glowing cone and blew with more force. Suddenly, the leaves ignited and he took the cone from her, shoving it into the tinder of the fire. Kneeling, he piled more dry leaves around, and as the flames grew, he pushed in first smaller sticks, then larger. Soon the fire was crackling nicely.
‘If you will be so kind as to fill our canteens from the stream, Miss Reardon, then tend the fire, I will set about catching us our supper.’
He found the ideal place two hundred paces from their camp. The stream widened a little, while its bed flattened, a little pool that, once he’d stripped off his breeches and stockings, only reached to just above his knee, a few inches below his shirt-tails. The water was deliciously cool, refreshing on a mid-September day that had turned hot again once they’d escaped the fog. If he had been alone in the forest he would certainly have stripped off completely and dived in. But he was there, anyway, for another purpose. Forearms resting lightly on his lower thighs, he let his fingers sink into the water.
He had positioned himself so that his shadow fell behind him. The ripples of his entry, the slight stirring of silt, all had settled again. The pool was almost as it was. His breathing slackened. Only his eyes moved, following the brown shapes that flitted from pebble to tumbled branch across the stream bed. A trout banged against his ankle. Too small. It moved away; one of its larger brothers came near. Nearer. He struck. Tossing the fish on to the bank, Jack grinned and crouched again.
Later, he heard her coming but he did not move to the sound. He had been stalking the biggest of the fish, or rather willing it close. He had gone for it once and the beast, belying its size, had squirted agilely away from his questing fingers. Enough time had passed, its fish brain had forgotten him, it was coming closer, ever closer …
‘Well, now. That is quite the sight.’
Jack shot his hands in, a tail fin brushed his hand with silk and was gone.
‘Zounds! You made me miss it, woman!’
He straightened, stretched, easing his now-cramped back. Louisa laughed. ‘Have you not caught enough?’
She pointed to the six trout that lay on a moss-covered rock, all longer than Jack’s hand. They had fat backs, brown and speckled, creamy bellies.
‘Aye,’ replied Jack, ‘but what are you going to eat?’
She laughed again, a sound as good to his ears as any in that twilit forest. He waded to her, climbed out. ‘You are a fine fisherman, sir.’
‘You are kind. Yet I am but a novice. Would you care to see the master?’
On her nod, he beckoned silence, took her hand and led her a few feet forward, parting the leaves of an overhanging willow. They peered through. ‘Now there’s a fishe
The heron was perhaps fifty yards further down the stream, stiller than Jack could ever have been, more perfectly hidden, blue and grey feathers blending it into its world. As they watched the pencil neck straightened, craning out over the water.
‘Does it know we are here?’ Louisa whispered.
‘It knows. That circle vision takes in everything. But we’ve been fishing side by side for an hour now. It doesn’t mind me.’
Suddenly, the bird’s head shot down. Scalpel beak sliced the surface, a glitter was impaled, there was a flickering of sunlight on silver, a bulge in the thin neck. Then all was still again.
‘Perfect.’ Jack let the leaves fall back. ‘Mind you, they are ungainly flyers. And their call is a harsh croak.’
‘And they have spindly legs. Unlike yours.’
She glanced at them, wet to the thighs, damp shirt-tails hanging halfway down. He smiled and she smiled back and for a moment all was still in the forest. Then he turned away to his clothes, and said, ‘Come, Louisa. Let’s have our supper.’
Full night was upon them when they finally lay back in their birch-bark shelter, sated.
‘Well,’ Louisa sighed, ‘among all your obvious talents, I never would have guessed you a master of cuisine.’
Jack leaned forward to shove another log on to the fire – and to conceal his pleasure at her words.
‘Camp fare only. Simple stuff.’
‘The best I’ve eaten in many a week. The campaign’s been hard on the commissary.’ She reached to grab a last few crumbs from the wooden cooking plank. ‘What did you call these?’
‘Johnny cakes. Just cornmeal, maple sugar … and I was lucky to find those sweet chestnuts.’
‘Chestnuts. Yes! So,’ she sat up and looked at him with that peculiarly secretive smile, ‘Jack Absolute. Soldier. Mohawk. Duellist. Dramatist. Chef! One feels quite outshone. What other talents have you yet to reveal?’ Her tone was teasing.
Jack cleared his throat. ‘A talent for trouble, perhaps. Recently I reflected on the number of people who have tried to kill me lately, the variety of their methods.’ He poked at the fire with a stick, watched little blazing empires collapse, others arise.