Chapter 14

Peals of drunken laughter drifted through the open door of Sike’s tavern and into the street, followed by a reedy voice. “What’d yer Emma think of ye if she could see ye now, McCord?”

"Ye leave my Emma out of this. Ye got no right to so much as speak her name. No right at all, sinful lot of toady jackasses—" McCord's tone was strident; his speech was cut off with an audible thump and gurgling gasp.

"No right to speak her name, ye say, when half the county had bedded the Tory bitch before ye wedded with her? She weren't no saint, cooper. Hell," McCord's tormentor said with a laugh. "She weren't even good."

There was general laughter then, some of it slightly uneasy, and riding beneath it like the sour strain of an amateur's violin was the cooper's low, whining protest. "'Tain't so, damn yer lyin' eyes. My Emma was London-born, it's true, but she never was no Tory. Evil talk is all it is, evil talk from evil men, an' ye'll roast in Hades for it, every last one of ye."

"What was that ye said, cooper? Come again now, and don't be shy. My fellows didn't hear ye."

"I believe you heard him quite clearly," Draegan said from the doorway. "He said he's had enough of your company for one evening, and he's quite anxious to take himself on home. Isn't that so, Master McCord?"

The cooper nodded briefly and made to rise from his chair, but the rangers who flanked him lay brawny hands on his shoulders and pushed him back down.

At a table nearby, Randall Quill took his ease, a look of amusement on his blunt-featured face, a face that was clearly flushed from drink. "Your arrival is timely, Reverend, but the reason for it seems unclear. Have ye come to hoist a few with the lads and me, or is it business that brings you here? Ah, yes, now I think I see. You've come to cast the demons out of the cooper, which is all well and good, I suppose, since he seems rather bedeviled this evening."

Sniggering laughter rippled through the crowd. Quill sat back in his chair, his chest expanded, obviously pleased with himself.

Draegan smiled thinly. His reply was silken. "As a matter of fact, I've come to cast the swine out of Sike's Tavern."

Randall slowly straightened, and his ears grew fiery red. The rangers who had flanked the cooper left him and moved threateningly forward as one.

"I wouldn't, were I you." Draegan slipped a hand inside his coat, his fingers closing over the smooth walnut grip of one of his pistols.

"You ain't me, parson," the larger of the rangers snarled, "and unless you got something mightier than the Word of God under that coat of yours, you'd best start prayin'. No man calls Jack Mills a swine and gets by with it."

"I have the Word," Draegan said with deadly calm, producing a small worn Bible in his left hand, "and this." The pistol he gripped in his right hand drew a bead in the center of Jack Mills's forehead. The two men stopped, wary now, and Draegan looked to the militia captain, who was watching the scene with a look of expectancy. "Will you call off your slavering hounds, Quill, or risk losing them to a night of drink and excessive stupidity?"

"To Hell with him!" Jack Mills shouted. "He's got but one pistol, and he ain't gonna use it. I ain't never seen a parson yet what could handle a weapon."

The big man clapped a huge hand to the right side of his head and set up a howl when it came away bloody. "Crazy sonovabitch shot off the top of my ear! Aw, Jesus, now my damned hat'll be lopsided! Goddammit, Tom, stop laughin' and help me find it afore I bleed to death! You infernal jackass!"

"Don't take on so, dammit," Tom Neelly replied, still highly entertained by his friend's predicament. "I'll help ye find it, and after Mildred sews it back on fer ye, we'll come back here, tar and feather the cooper, just fer the hell of it, and kill that blasted parson."

Tom Neelly was on his knees, searching the floor for Jack's ear, when Draegan palmed the other loaded pistol and stepped up beside him. "Your friend Jack was mistaken. I've not one weapon, but two, and vocation aside, I don't like being threatened. So unless you want Jack, here, to be scouring the premises in search of the other side of your head, you had better go on home."

The room had gone still except for Jack's shuffling movements, and in the ensuing quiet, Draegan heard Tom Neelly swallow hard. "I am rather tired of this, here, game at that," he said, starting to rise, but Draegan's well-placed boot on his backside knocked him sprawling.

"No need to rise on my account, friend. After all, you'll want to continue your search on your way out."

Tom Neelly's face was livid, yet he said nothing further, just crawled to the door and disappeared into the night. Draegan turned to look for Jack Mills, but he had seemingly decided that one ear was better than none and taken himself on home to Mildred, which left only Jacob, the cooper, and Randall Quill, who was looking rather pale.

"Is something amiss, Captain?" Draegan politely inquired. "You look as if you've seen a ghost." With a low chuckle, he thrust the spent pistol through his belt. Then, taking the cooper firmly by the arm, he left Captain Randall Quill of the Esopus Rangers gaping in his wake.

"Fallon. Fallon, are you awake?" Willie's voice, accompanied by a soft, insistent tapping on the bedchamber door, dragged Fallon from her dreams. "Fallon!"

"A moment, Willie," Fallon replied, her voice a husky whisper. Shading her eyes against the bright flood of spring sunlight pouring through the casement window, she drew back the covers and slid her arms into the sleeves of her flannel wrapper.

Fallon freed the latch and the door inched open; through the crack Willie's blond curls and wide blue eyes appeared. "Mother sent me to check on you. When you failed to rise at your usual time, she got worried that you were ill."

"I was up rather late last night," Fallon said evasively. "I suppose that's why I overslept."

Terrible, haunting dreams of canvas shrouds, Draegan's sunken face and a death's-head grin... and Randall's endless echoing laughter.

Fallon crossed to the washstand and poured tepid water into the porcelain bowl. "Nothing worthy of mention. You seem lighter of heart this morning. Have you resolved your difficulties with Zepporah?"

Willie's glance met Fallon's in the glass, then just as quickly slid away. "Well, not exactly. But thanks to the reverend, I think we may have found a way around it."

"Draegan?" Fallon glanced sharply up, meeting Willie's gaze in the glass. "What has he to do with this?"

Willie reached into her apron pocket and produced a knotted white handkerchief, which she untied and held out to Fallon. "He sent me this, just yesterday."

Lying on the field of white linen were three gold coins and a scrap of paper, neatly folded. "That was very thoughtful of him," Fallon said.

"Not half so thoughtful as this." Extracting the paper, Willie opened it and read:

Enclosed are three guineas, one for the past, one for the present, and one for your glorious future with Thomas. Spend it on a bridal wreath and gown, or if you so choose, use it to procure a fast mount to see you both safely to the Congregational Church at Albany, where Pastor Jonathan Akers presides. Tell him that I sent you. Live long and live well, and above all be happy for what you have found with Thomas. It is more precious than you will ever know.D.M.

Willie refolded the note, replaced it in the kerchief and pressed the lot to her bosom, sniffing back her tears. "Oh, Fallon! Isn't it wonderfully romantic?"

"Yes," Fallon said with a frown, "wonderfully so." She'd thought Draegan's talk about Willie and Thomas and seizing the moment a subtle attempt at manipulation, a way to bring her willingly into his arms. Now she had cause to wonder.

Willie rattled happily on, jolting Fallon from her musings. "I sent word to Thomas directly, and he agrees that we need wait no longer. I'm to meet with him tomorrow night outside the garden gate, and we'll go to the rectory together."

Willie nodded, smiling wistfully. "Because of his thoughtfulness, Thomas and I decided that we'd have no other but Reverend Mattais to wed us. We deem it only fitting, after all he's said and done."

Fallon was stunned. She'd feared all along that the impetuous Willie might decide to run off with Thomas, against Zepporah's wishes, but never had it occurred to her that she would insist that Draegan perform the marriage. Draegan, who'd had but two scant years at Harvard College before his expulsion. Draegan, who in reality was not a minister at all, but a base fraud and a spy-catcher who doubtless had no inkling of the trouble he had caused by encouraging Willie.

She couldn't stand by and allow him to perform this farce of a marriage, the repercussions from which could very well be devastating! Yet short of betraying Draegan to Willie, or Willie to Zepporah, there seemed no way to stop it.

Staring into the glass, Fallon saw her own reflection, her paleness and the blue smudges that underscored her golden eyes. By contrast, Willie looked wonderfully happy—ecstatic, almost. Willie, her one true friend.

Tom between her loyalty to Willie and loyalty to Draegan and his cause, Fallon tried to tread carefully. "It's a wonderful thought, Willie, but not at all what he intended. Otherwise, he wouldn't have directed you to the church at Albany."

"But this is so much better!" Willie insisted. "Don't you see? If we go to Albany, then you can't be there with me. And Fallon," Willie said, clasping her hands tightly in her lap, "I do so want you there when I speak my vows." She leaped from the bed and hurried over to stand behind Fallon, her confident blue gaze meeting Fallon's worried one in the looking glass. "You've been my friend all my life—why, almost my sister! It just wouldn't be right to marry Thomas without you there to stand up for me." She placed a plump white hand on Fallon's shoulder and looked beseechingly into the glass. "Please, Fallon. Say you'll be there for me tomorrow eve."

Fallon blinked back a sudden rush of sentimental tears. "I'm not at all sure that I approve, but how can I possibly refuse? Yes, Willie. I'll come stand up with you."

Later that night, two shadowy forms emerged from Vanderbloon's Wood. "It's him, I tell you! Major Youngblood, the man we hanged from that very limb last April."

"You are every bit as guilty as I!" Randall shouted. "You were the one we were chasing, you killed Jim Sike, and you were the one who rightly should have been hanged that night. 'Twas you alone who planted the papers in Youngblood's belongings and then left him there unawares to suffer the consequences! If he's come back from the grave to wreak his vengeance, then he must know that you are just as guilty as I!"

Randall's shout was tom from his lips and whisked away down the hollow by the rising wind. A storm was brewing.

The sky was black, the stars hidden behind a great bank of clouds. Lucien had been watching the heavens while his partner in crime ranted and raved. Now he looked at him, a calculating look, which bore an equal measure of wry humor and disgust. "Lud, you do excel at histrionics. So much so that you should think of joining a thespian traveling troupe. It would give you free leave to practice your hysterics at will and would keep you away from Abundance."

"Histrionics!" Randall cried, still caught in the throes of a violent passion. "You can make light of it because you did not see what I saw or hear what I heard last night!"

"Yes. Yes, I know," Lucien said, his attention focused on his nails. "Hounds of Hell, or some such thing."

"'Slavering hounds' is what he said," Randall corrected irritably. "'Will you call off your slavering hounds,' just as he said it that night!"

"Yes, well... I can see why you're so overwrought," Lucien said dryly. "That's quite a piece of evidence you have there, a veritable mountain of indisputable facts with which to support your claim that Reverend Mattais is in reality Major Youngblood, come, as you so colorfully put it, 'back from the grave to wreak his vengeance.' "

They had come to a stop beneath the spreading boughs of the sentinel maple; at the foot of the carefully tended grave, Lucien leaned on his cane. "Now, now, do not be peevish with me. It is not that I place no credence in your claim; I should simply like to know if you have some other piece of evidence to support it, something more substantial."

"How do you mean, substantial? There is Mattais himself—or Youngblood—or whatever in Hell he is calling himself now!"

Lucien clucked his tongue. "Not enough. There must be more—proof positive that Mattais is who you say. Something that would shore up your shaky claim."

"What possible proof can there be?" Randall demanded. "The night we supped together at the manor, he knew me! And I thought I knew him— or at least a part of him—those eyes! I'll never forget those unearthly green eyes."

Lucien sighed and turned his face heavenward. "God grant me patience. I do not deal well with imbeciles." After a pause, he continued, "I rather thought it might be obvious, but I suppose I must point it out to you. The grave, Randall." He thumped the mound with the tip of his cane. "The grave is proof to substantiate your theory or to blow it to bits! Take that spade, there, and dig it up. If you find the poor, unfortunate major is still there, moldering away, then you can sleep again at night without a candle burning on your bedside table. If not—well, we shall deal with that eventuality, if and when it comes."

Randall just stood and stared at Lucien, looking unnaturally pale, until Lucien snatched up the short-handled spade and thrust it at the younger man. "Put your back into it, damn you! Time is wasting, and there is no telling when Mattais will return!"

Randall hesitated only a moment; then, casting a look of pure, unadulterated hatred at Lucien, he took up the spade and sank it deep into the hallowed earth.

Over the course of the next hour Randall labored and Randall cursed. Sweat ran in runnels down his face, and the veins at his temple and neck stood out.

Lucien leaned on his cane to watch his partner's progress, listening to the rising wind soughing in the boughs of the sentinel maple, but he did not offer to lend a hand. Quill, after all, had gotten them into this mess with his hellish temper, and Lucien was of no mind to extract him just yet. Let him suffer and worry and sweat awhile longer, he thought; the experience would do him good.

At nine minutes past the hour of midnight, the first flicker of lightning streaked across the sky, followed by a low rumble of thunder that nearly drowned out the hollow ring of the metal spade striking wood.

Randall hesitated, glancing first at the plain wooden box encrusted with earth, and then at Lucien. "Perhaps you'd like to do the honors." He handed the spade to the older man, scrambling out of the grave and averting his face.

"Ever squeamish," Lucien muttered, climbing down into the wound in the earth. Using the metal spade, Lucien pried at the lid of the coffin until the nails creaked free, then shoved it aside to examine the contents. "You may turn and look, boy. The box is unoccupied."

A jagged streak of lightning cleaved the night sky, making Randall's round face look deathly pale. "I was right. Mattais is Youngblood. How can that be? It makes no sense. I hanged him myself! How can he not be dead?"

Lucien smiled. "You hanged him, yes. But are you certain he was done for, Randall?"

When Randall did not reply, Lucien persisted. "Did you stay until he was cold? Did you put him in the ground yourself, or witness his interment?"

"I left just after the hanging," Randall reluctantly admitted. "Everyone was gone by then."

Randall nodded jerkily, still clearly unnerved. "Everyone. Private Deeter walked out before the deed was done, and the others left shortly thereafter."

"It was the last night he was with the Esopus Rangers. After that he drifted away, keeping to himself."

Lucien climbed out of the hole and brushed the dirt from his hands. "If everyone was gone, and Youngblood was dangling at the end of his rope, who cut him down and dug this grave?"

Randall's head came up, and his eyes narrowed. "Jacob Deeter. He said he came back some hours later to cut the man down and give him a decent burial in hopes of salving his conscience for the part he'd played in the 'evil deed.' "

"'Evil deed,' " Lucien repeated softly. "'Salving his conscience. There is the answer to your question, young sir. If Deeter's conscience was hurting him so hard, he might have lingered and watched, and, the moment you turned your back, scrambled to cut down the unfortunate major."

"That does not take away the fact that Youngblood was hanged! How could he have lived through such an ordeal?"

Lucien casually waved a hand in the air. "Oh, it is possible, if conditions are right. I saw a murderer hanged in Kingston once, when I was just a lad. The hangman was careless in placing the knot, and the condemned man took a terribly long time to die. It was slow strangulation, instead of a snap of the neck. It was quite untidy."

"Then I was right," Randall said, pacing nervously by the side of the open grave. "He has come back for retribution. Dear God, Lucien, what if he knows? What if Youngblood knows about the muskets and the men, and all the rest? He might have talked, told his superiors!"

Lucien took Randall firmly by the arms and gave him a hearty shake. "Save your theatrics, boy! This is no time for you to lose your spine. Think about what you are saying. If Youngblood had spoken of that night to his superiors, if they'd had the smallest shred of proof as to Sparrowhawk's identity, we would not be standing here now, would we? Of course not. Therefore we must assume that we are safe—for the moment. Yet, if we are to remain safe, something must be done."

Lucien turned slightly, pinning Randall with his chilly stare. "You must finish what you started here that night. It's as simple as that. And I think it only fitting that Jacob Deeter aid you in your task, don't you?"

Fallon Deane stood naked in a sun-drenched field of tall meadow grass and bright summer flowers, her coppery tresses loose and flowing... a shimmering curtain through which the coral tips of her full young breasts, the curve of a girlish hip, were barely visible.

Sweet, she was, beguiling. A veritable wood nymph designed to ensnare and torment, to tease and to deny—only him.

She was his penance for a life too fully lived, for the scores of petty indiscretions that had sullied his soul, shamed his family, blackened his reputation.

She was unreachable, the one woman he couldn't have, couldn't possess, couldn't hold.

Standing at the edge of the field, with his loins on fire and his heart in his throat, Draegan called her name, begging her to come to him. But she would only smile her sweet, innocent smile and beckon him forward with a wave of her slim white hand.

Faced with the choice of dying of his desires or chancing the unsteady ground that lay between them, Draegan started forward, sinking deeper into the marshy ground with each step he took, feeling the chilly quicksand drag him down, while Fallon called his name....

"Reverend Mattais, sir! For the love of God, please be there! Reverend Mattais!"

The dream image shattered into a thousand tiny fragments and fell away. His heart pounding against his ribs and his brow beaded with cold sweat, Draegan groaned, turning onto his back.

There were several seconds of silence, and then the feverish pounding resumed, accompanied by the cooper's querulous voice. "Reverend, sir! Reverend Mattais! Please, sir, you must come!"

"I am coming, dammit. I'm coming." Draegan dragged himself off the bed and made his way to the door, lifting the latch and jerking the panel open. "What the devil is it? Oh, McCord, it's you. What brings you by in the middle of the night?"

"Jacob, sir! 'Tis Jacob. He came by Sike's this evening and was kind enough to see me home. He was just about to leave, when this big cat come out of nowhere and spooked his mount. Jacob fell, sir. He's in a real bad way, and he asked, would you come?"

"He's at my place, on the far side of Vanderbloon's Wood. I'll show you the way, reverend, sir. But hurry!"

Taking one of the pistols from the great cupboard, he donned the black coat and followed the cooper into the night.

The rain had ceased earlier, and now an insidious fog crept through the hollows, blanketing the ground, muffling the rhythmic sound of the horses' hooves.

North for a quarter mile, they progressed at a snail's pace; then they turned east, along Kingston Road. A lightless track, it snaked its way through soaring stands of virgin timber, around boulders larger than a one-room cabin, uphill and down.

Draegan shot the older man a frowning glance. Damned if he didn't seem intent upon dragging his heels all the way home, an odd attitude for a man who'd been frantic for him to hurry just a few moments before. It was almost as if McCord had forgotten that Jacob lay in desperate need of assistance the moment they'd taken to the road, and instead had developed a keen interest in their surroundings. Mounted on a potbellied mule, McCord plodded along a few yards ahead of Draegan, his head turning first this way, then that, for all the world as if it were mounted on a swivel.

There was a sudden horrible sinking sensation in the pit of Draegan's stomach, too strong, too instinctive, too sickeningly familiar to be discounted. It was the same sensation he'd had looking down the muzzle of Lucy Greenhill's horse pistol, and again when Quill's man had reached into his belongings and come away with those infamous papers. An intuitive inner voice that screamed a warning it was already too late to heed.

In the time it takes to draw a breath, the night, so quiet until that moment, exploded with sound. A hoarse warning cry high up on the left bank— from a voice that sounded uncannily like Jacob's— tore through the stillness, followed by a vicious curse, a series of thumps, and the sound of something heavy striking the earth.

In that same instant, Draegan wheeled his mount and sank his spurs into the stallion's side. The stallion lunged forward, but the movement seemed slow and awkward.

Several figures armed with muskets raced down the bank to Draegan's right, with Jack Mills in the lead. Down the incline he barreled, and into the road, letting go a booming laugh as he grabbed the stallion's bridle.

Draegan reacted without thinking. Snatching one of the pistols from his belt, he aimed at Jack Mills's brawny chest and shot the big man dead. The stallion seemed to sense his master's urgency and thundered on, his hooves churning the mist so that it swirled up around them.

To the rear, Mills's companions reached their fallen comrade and sent up a collective howl. There was a flash of fire and a resounding "boom," and a ball whined precariously close to Draegan's head. There was another shot, and something plucked at his sleeve.

Bending low over the stallion's neck, he spoke to the animal, urging it to greater speed. Safety lay in the sharp bend in the road a few yards ahead. If he could just clear the turn, he thought, his attackers would have no time for a second volley, and he could get safely away.

Within sight of his goal, Draegan plunged recklessly around the turn and saw the big-barreled roan standing broadside in the road. Randall Quill sat calmly astride the animal, pistol drawn and ready.

There was no time to slow down, no way to avoid Quill's big-barreled mount—to avoid catastrophe—so Draegan clenched his jaw and madly dashed straight ahead to embrace it. With nightmarish clarity, he saw Quill's stark white countenance, his nervous glance. The captain's finger tightened over the trigger as Draegan booted the white into a high forward lunge. Banshee's broad, muscled breast struck the smaller mount like a battering ram and knocked it aside, unseating its rider. At the same time the captain's pistol barked, and spat orange flame.

Draegan felt the catch in his left side, just below his ribs, and then the searing pain that followed. In the darkness to the rear Quill's virulent curses filled the still night air, mingling with the shouts of his men, the continuing sounds of pursuit.

Slipping a hand inside his coat, Draegan grimaced. It came away warm and slick with blood. He'd have to hole up—soon—see to his wound, and prepare his next step.

He'd have to stay astride long enough to lose himself in Vanderbloon's Wood. The wood flanked the rear of the church and rectory, it was nearly impenetrable in places, and it offered concealment.

At that moment, with the night swirling madly around him, it seemed his best and brightest hope.