Light crept in through the cracks between boards. Pale. Lethargic. Morning, but not quite. As if the sun hovered just below the horizon for the sole purpose of tormenting Elias Dubois, forcing him to live his last moments on this earth stuck between night and day. No matter. It felt like home, this in-between, the threat of death a familiar companion. But this time, more than his life would be on the line. Other men depended upon him if he did not make it back to Boston. And that single, bruising thought stuck in his craw, sharp as a wedged bone.

“You are a disappointment.”

Lifting his hand, he shoved away his grandfather’s words echoing from the grave and probed his swollen eye. The chains hanging from his wrist rattled like a skeleton—a reminder of what he’d soon become. A slow smile stretched his lips. At least he could see. Face the noose head-on and die with dignity. His smile bled into a frown. Was there anything dignified about the last beat of a heart?

“Dubois! You ready to die?” A voice, as chilling as the spring air, blasted against the storage shed door.

Elias pushed up from the crate he’d called a bed. “Now is as good a time as any.” The lie flowed a little too easily, and he winced, regretting the falsehood…regretting his failure. Because of his error, a deadly French weapon would kill countless English and Colonials.

Unless he made it out of here—alive and with that weapon—the tide of the war could once again turn back to the French. Ah, but his grandfather surely must be rolling in his coffin to know that the fate of an entire war hinged on his prodigal grandson.

A key scraped against metal. A wooden bar lifted. The silhouette of a red-coated grim reaper darkened the door.

“Then let’s be about it.” Captain Scraling stepped aside, leaving enough room for Elias to pass yet not escape, for another soldier stood outside, five paces away from the door.

His smile nearly returned. Where would he run to inside a palisade with guards at the ready?

Stretching a wicked kink out of his neck, he strolled ahead as if the request meant nothing more than a call to a hearty breakfast. But once past the threshold, he stopped and studied the sky—gray as a corpse drained of life. He shot the captain a scowl. “You are early. The sun is not up yet.”

Scraling shrugged. “I have many things to do today. You are the least of them. Follow the private, if you please.” He tipped his head toward the Colonial regular.

Elias smirked. “And if I do not?”

The captain’s fist shot out. Elias’s head exploded. Reeling, he plummeted backward, unable to stop himself from crashing to the ground. Blast! Just when his eye had started to open.

The next strike drove the air from his lungs. Groaning, he rolled over and gasped for air. An impossibility though when Scraling grabbed the back of his collar and yanked him to his feet.

“Move it!” The captain shoved him between the shoulder blades.

He stumbled forward, catching himself before ramming into the man in front of him. And a good thing too for the private stood ready to pummel him as well.

“Lead on, Private,” the captain ordered.

They marched across the parade ground. Two wagons were being loaded near the front gate, not far from the rough-hewn gallows—a reminder to those arriving and departing that justice would be meted out, even here in the New York wilderness. Each step stole a breath from the few he yet owned, but he couldn’t begrudge these men who prodded him onward. He was as guilty of the charges as Lucifer himself.

Birdsong trilled in the quiet of predawn, a pleasant accompaniment to the tramp of their feet. The shaking started then. First in his hands, working upward over arms and shoulders, diving in deep and spreading from gut to legs. It was always like this when the smell of death grew stronger—or was that his stench from being locked in a shed for two days without courtesy of a privy break?

He glanced skyward. Is this it, Lord?

A gentle morning breeze nudged the hanging rope. The movement was slight, barely noticeable, but enough to twist Elias’s throat into a sodden knot. The hairs at the back of his neck stood out like wire. Was he truly ready to die? Was anyone?

Spare the lives of those men, God. The ones I failed. And forgive me for my lack.

Just ten paces more and—

The private made a sharp right, pivoting away from the scaffold. Elias’s step faltered. Was this some kind of trick? He looked back to the captain.

A fist smashed into his nose. Double blast! His head jerked aside, the force knocking him to his hands and knees. The ground spun. Blood dripped over his top lip. The captain taunted from behind, something about his manliness or lack thereof. Hard to tell. Sound buzzed like a beehive that had been whacked with a stick—but even louder was the anger inside him, pumping stronger with each heartbeat. His fury strained at the leash. Staggering to his feet, he bit back a curse and spit out the nasty taste in his mouth, then lifted his face to the sky.

“Forgive these men too, Lord, for I surely am not able to at this moment.” He spoke in French, not only to prevent the satisfaction the captain would feel at his admission, but more importantly to irritate the Englishman.

“Move along!”

Head pounding, he tromped after the private, unable to work up any more curiosity as to why they bypassed the noose and neared the officers’ quarters. Likely a last interrogation—and his last chance to talk his way out of this mess.

Please, God. More than my life depends upon this. Have mercy.

The private knocked and, after a gruff “Enter” grumbled from inside, shoved open the door.

Elias advanced, swiping the blood from his nose and breathing in sage and rotgut rum.

Brigadier General Bragg did not so much as look up from his desk. He merely flicked out his hand as if the lot of them were blackflies to be swatted. “Captain, Private, wait outside.”

With a final scowl aimed at Elias, Captain Scraling stomped off. Clearly he was not happy for being told to wait like a dog—and the thought of his inconvenience made Elias smile, despite the way the movement stung.

The general pinched a document in his fingers and held it up, skewering him with a glower of his own. “This is a warrant for your death.”

Elias frowned. Why show him the document before draining the life from his eyes? This was not standard procedure. He’d fold his arms and stare the man down were his hands not weighted by irons.

“And this”—Bragg paused and held up a different parchment—“is a stay of execution.”

A stay? What in all of God’s great glory? A muscle jumped in his jaw, but he refused to gape, for surely the general expected such a response.

Though he’d regret it, the irony of the situation slowly unraveled inside him, and he chuckled. If only François could hear this. He laughed until the pounding of his skull could no longer be denied.

Bragg’s brow darkened, as did the scarlet tip of his nose. “I fail to see the humor in this, Dubois.”

“Are you seriously cutting a deal with a traitor?”

“I’d deal with the devil if I had to.”

“Well, I suppose I am the closest thing you have to that.” He angled his head. “What is your offer?”

Bragg leaned so far back in his chair, the wood creaked a grievance. “I have a shipment of gold needing safe delivery into British lands.”

Elias advanced so quickly, Bragg reached for his pistol. Stopping short of lunging across the man’s desk, Elias slammed his hands onto the wood, the chains adding to the startling effect. “Are you asking me to deliver the gold you stole from me?” The question echoed above the crackle of wood in the fire and the snort of the man in front of him.

“Yes.”

Straightening, he lifted his face to the plank ceiling. “You never stop surprising me.”

“We’ve only recently met.”

He aimed his gaze back at Bragg like a loaded musket. “I was not talking to you.”

The general shifted in his seat, laying his pistol in his lap. “My terms are these: You will be part of a four-person squad, traveling under the guise of a family moving back to civilization. Reach Fort Edward with the gold intact, and your execution will be pardoned, though the required jail time is nonnegotiable.”

His stomach clenched—and not from lack of food. Something wasn’t right about this. “Why me?”

“I don’t think I need to tell you, soldier, that you will be crossing dangerous ground. The chances of making it alive to Fort Edward are slim. You’re a condemned man anyway. Expendable. And if you don’t make it…” He shrugged.

Interesting—but completely implausible. Elias grunted. “What is to stop me from killing my companions and running off?”

“They will be armed. You will not.”

No one could survive in the wilderness without a gun or a knife. Elias shook his head. “Then I might as well die here.”

“With good behavior, you shall walk free. Eventually.” Bragg held up both papers, shaking them so that the documents rippled like living things. “So, what will it be? Life…or death?”

Elias shifted his gaze from one to the other. Was this an answer to his prayer? Or a fiendish jest?

Reaching out, he snatched the parchment sentencing him to the gallows. He could end this here and now. Stop the running. Finish the vagabond life that he’d come to hate. Just a quick jerk from a tight rope, then a blissfully peaceful eternity with the only Father he’d ever respected.

Bragg’s jaw dropped.

Elias smiled from the satisfaction of it.

Then ripped the document to pieces.