William wanted to scream but didn’t have the breath for it. Backing away in panic, he brushed a hand against his breeches and felt wetness there. He glanced down, fearing the worst, but saw instead the cloth dark with blood, and at the same time realized that there was a slight stinging sensation at the top of his thigh.
“Bloody… hell,” he muttered, fumbling at his waist. He’d managed to stab himself with his own dagger, but it was still there, thank God. The feel of the hilt steadied him, and he pulled it out, still backing away as Johnson came toward him, making a sort of yowling noise, yanking at the ax handle.
The ax came loose, releasing a gush of blood that rolled down Johnson’s face and splattered William’s face and arms and chest. Johnson swung the ax with a huff of effort, but his movements were slow and clumsy. William ducked aside, farting with the movement but regaining his nerve.
He tightened his grip on the dagger and looked for a place to stick it. Round the back, his mind suggested. Johnson was dashing one forearm uselessly across his face, trying to clear his eyes, the ax held in the other hand, sweeping to and fro in wide, trembling swaths.
“William!” Surprised by the voice, he glanced aside and was nearly struck by the wavering blade.
“Shut up,” he said crossly. “I’m busy.”
“Yes, I see that,” said Denny Hunter. “Let me help thee.” He was white-faced and shaking nearly as much as Johnson, but stepped forward and, with a sudden lunge, seized the ax handle and pulled the implement out of Johnson’s grasp. He stepped back and dropped it on the floor with a thunk, looking as though he might be sick at any moment.
“Thank you,” said William. He stepped forward and drove the dagger upward under Johnson’s ribs, into his heart. Johnson’s eyes opened wide with the shock and stared directly into William’s. They were gray-blue, with a scattering of gold and yellow flecks near the dark iris. William had never seen anything more beautiful and stood transfixed for an instant, until the feel of the pumping blood over his hand returned him to himself.
He jerked the knife free and stood back, letting the body fall. He was trembling all over and about to shit himself. He turned blindly and headed for the door, brushing past Denny, who said something that he didn’t quite hear.
Shuddering and gasping in the privy, though, he thought the doctor had said, “Thee did not have to do that.”
Yes, he thought, I did, and bowed his head upon his knees, waiting for everything to abate.
WILLIAM EMERGED AT LAST from the privy, feeling clammy and rubber-limbed but less internally volatile. Denny Hunter rushed past him and into the structure, from which explosive noises and loud groans were immediately heard. Moving hastily away, he made his way through a spatter of rain toward the house.
Dawn was some way off, but the air had begun to stir, and the farmhouse stood out against the paling sky, black and skeletal. He entered, feeling very uncertain, to find Rachel, white as bone, standing guard with a broom over Mrs. Johnson, who was wrapped tightly in a filthy sheet, thrashing a bit and making peculiar hissing and spitting noises.
Her husband’s remains lay facedown by the hearth in a pool of congealing blood. He didn’t want to look at the body, but felt it would be somehow wrong not to, and went and stood by it for a moment, looking down. One of the Hunters had poked up the fire and added wood; there was warmth in the room, but he couldn’t feel it.
“He’s dead,” Rachel said, her voice colorless.
“Yes.” He didn’t know how he was meant to feel in such a situation and had no real idea how he did feel. He turned away, though, with a slight sense of relief, and came to look at the prisoner.
“Did she… ?”
“She tried to cut Denny’s throat, but she stepped on my hand and woke me. I saw the knife and screamed, and he seized her, and…” She pulled a hand through her hair, and he saw that she had lost her cap, and the hair was loose and tangled.
“I sat on her,” she said, “and Denny rolled her up in the sheet. I don’t think she can speak,” Rachel added, as he stooped to look at the woman. “Her tongue is split.”
Mrs. Johnson, hearing this, thrust out her tongue in vindictive fashion and waggled the two halves of it independently at him. With the memory of the dream snakes vivid in his mind, he flinched in instinctive revulsion, but saw the look of satisfaction that crossed her face.
“If she can do that with her nasty tongue, she can talk,” he said, and, reaching down, took hold of the woman’s scrawny throat. “Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you, too.”
“Iss not my fault!” she said promptly, in such a rasping hiss that he nearly let go of her in shock. “He makess me help him.”
William glanced over his shoulder at the body on the hearth.
“Not anymore.” He tightened his grip, feeling the beat of her pulse against his thumb. “How many travelers have you killed, the two of you?”
She didn’t answer but stroked her upper lip lasciviously with her tongue, first one half and then the other. He let go her throat and slapped her hard across the face. Rachel gasped.
“Thee must not—”
“Oh, yes, I must.” He rubbed his hand against the side of his breeches, trying to get rid of the feel of the woman’s sweat, her slack skin, her bony throat. His other hand was beginning to throb painfully. He wanted suddenly to pick up the ax and smash her with it, over and over—crush her head, hack her to bits. His body trembled with the urge; she saw it in his eyes and stared back at him, eyes black and glittering.
“You don’t want me to kill her?” he asked Rachel.
“Thee must not,” she whispered. Very slowly, she reached for his burned hand, and, when he did not pull away, took it into hers. There was a roaring in his ears, and he felt dizzy.
“Thee is hurt,” she said softly. “Come outside. I will wash it.”
She led him out, half blind and stumbling, and made him sit on the chopping block while she brought a bucket of water from the trough. It had stopped raining, though the world dripped and the dawn air was moist and fresh in his chest.
Rachel bathed his hand in the cold water, and the burning eased a little. She touched his thigh, where the blood had dried in a long patch down his breeches, but let it go when he shook his head.
“I’ll bring thee whisky; there is some in Denny’s bag.” She stood up, but he grabbed her wrist with his good hand, holding hard.
“Rachel.” His own voice sounded odd to him, remote, as though someone else was speaking. “I’ve never killed anyone before. I don’t—I don’t quite know what to do about it.” He looked up at her, searching her face for understanding. “If it had been—I expected it to be in battle. That—I think I’d know how. How to feel, I mean. If it had been like that.”
She met his eyes, her face drawn in troubled thought. The light touched her, a pink softer than the sheen of pearls, and after a long time she touched his face, very gently.
“No,” she said. “Thee wouldn’t.”
PART FIVE
To the Precipice
CROSSROAD
WILLIAM PARTED FROM the Hunters at a nameless crossroad somewhere in New Jersey. It was not politic for him to go further; their inquiries regarding the position of the Continental army were being greeted with increasing hostility, indicating that they were getting close. Neither rebel sympathizers nor Loyalists who feared reprisal from an army on their doorstep wished to say anything to mysterious travelers who might be spies or worse.
The Quakers would have an easier time of it without him. They were so plainly what they were and Denzell’s intent to enlist as a surgeon both so simple and so admirable that, if they were alone, people would help them, he thought. Or at least receive their inquiries more kindly. With William, though…
Saying that he was a friend of the Hunters had been sufficient, earlier in the journey. Folk were curious about the little group, but not suspicious. As they drew farther into New Jersey, though, the agitation of the countryside increased markedly. Farms had been raided by foraging parties, both by Hessians from Howe’s army, trying to lure Washington into open battle from his lurking place in the Watchung Mountains, and from the Continental army, desperate for supplies.
Farmhouses that would normally have welcomed strangers for the news they bore now repelled them with muskets and harsh words. Food was growing harder to find. Rachel’s presence sometimes helped them get close enough to offer money—and William’s small store of gold and silver was certainly helpful; Denzell had put most of the money from the sale of their house with a bank in Philadelphia to secure Rachel’s future safety, and the paper money issued by the Congress was almost universally rejected.
There was no means by which William could masquerade as a Quaker, though. Beyond his inability to master plain speech, his size and bearing made people nervous—the more so as he, with the memories of Captain Nathan Hale vivid in his mind, would not say that he meant to enlist in the Continental army nor ask any questions that might later be presented as evidence of spying. His silence—perceived as menacing—also made people nervous.
He hadn’t spoken to the Hunters regarding their parting, and both Denzell and Rachel had been careful not to ask about his own plans. Everyone knew the time had come, though; he could feel it in the air when he woke that morning. When Rachel handed him a chunk of bread for breakfast, her hand brushed his, and he nearly seized her fingers. She felt the strength of his stifled impulse and looked up, startled, directly into his eyes. More green than brown today, and he would have sent discretion to the devil and kissed her—he thought she would not have objected—had her brother not just then emerged from the bushes, buttoning his flies.
He chose the place, all of a sudden. Naught to be gained by delay, and maybe better to do it without thinking too much. He pulled his horse to a stop in the middle of the crossroad, startling Denzell, whose mare bridled and danced at the jerk on her reins.
“I will leave you here,” William said abruptly, and more harshly than he had intended. “My way lies north”—he nodded in that direction, and thank God the sun was up so he could tell which way north was—“while I think that if you continue to the east, you will encounter some representatives of Mr. Washington’s army. If…” He hesitated, but they should be warned. From what the farmers had said, it was plain that Howe had sent troops into the area.
“If you meet with British troops or Hessian mercenaries—do you speak German, by chance?”
Denzell shook his head, eyes wide behind his spectacles. “Only a little French.”
“That’s good. Most Hessian officers have good French. If you meet with Hessians who don’t and they offer to molest you, say to them, ‘Ich verlange, Euren Vorgcsctztcn zu sehen; ich bin mit seinem Freund bekannt? That means, ‘I demand to see your officer; I know his friend.’ Say the same thing if you meet with British troops. In English, of course,” he added awkwardly.
A faint smile crossed Denzell’s face.