“Kongo can lead us all to freedom,” Quaco said. “My people. You people, Irish people. Not alone. Kongo can no say magic words and English go away. Men have to do that. And men can no win if bad people too big. Men need help.” He paused, glancing around the empty streets. “That why we try to reach the Spaniards,” Quaco went on. “With English, you need big guns.”
In one quick meeting on the street, Kongo told Cormac almost nothing, as if trying to keep Cormac out of the conspiracy.
“Wait,” he said. “You have your own task. The man who killed your father.”
But the plan was emerging. If the African and Irish rebels could wound the English forces in New York, if they could seize arms, if they could panic the civilian population, then Spain could take the city with a handful of ships. Timing was everything. And it was not just talk. One Saturday night, a Spanish-speaking slave named Morales disappeared. His name appeared Monday morning on a poster offering a reward. But the gossip of revolt provided a motive: Morales was already heading south, to find the Spanish in Savannah or Florida.
For Cormac, the conspiracy was like a novel read in glimpses, with many chapters missing. The falling snow provided the continuity. And one February night he went to Hughson’s at the invitation of Quaco. Irishmen and Africans arrived with snow melting on their hats and shoulders, their faces glistening as they stamped their feet and accepted hot tea or strong coffee. On this night, at Kongo’s order, there would be neither porter nor strong liquor. Mary Burton, Sarah Hughson, and Peggy were absent, and off-duty soldiers were kept out by the posting of a sign that said “Private Party.” In the street, lounging in doorways out of the snow, lone men watched for redcoats or constables. Finally Hughson tapped a spoon on the side of a metal tankard and the room hushed.
“Hear ye, hear ye,” Hughson said, and laughed in an ironical way. Cormac was deep in the crowd. Kongo stood before the blue door, while Alvarado lolled with folded arms against the back door. Quaco was at the bar, his face tense. There was an odd glint in Hughson’s eyes. Cormac noted that his face trembled, as if he were trying to decide which mask to wear.
“We’ve met here often as friends,” he said. “Tonight, we meet as allies. All here share a common condition: the lack of freedom. Many of you are slaves. Many are indentured servants. You are both—Irish and African—the property of others. That situation has become intolerable. Sinful. Criminal. We believe it’s time to do something about it.”
“Like what?” someone shouted. Cormac thought: Like freeing Mary Burton.
“This is neither the time nor the place to discuss details,” Hughson said. “The bloody British are masters of bribery, of informing, of spies. Some here might indeed be spies, and they have our warning: Betray us and you will be sorry.” Cormac glanced at Kongo. His face was skeptical, as if he too sensed that Hughson might be a prince of horseshit. “But the worry is real,” Hughson went on. “And so before we proceed, there must first be a swearing. An oath, binding us all to silence.”
“Good,” came a shout, and a murmured chorus of approval.
Hughson continued, “If any of yiz can’t swear such an oath, please leave now.”
Nobody moved. Cormac’s flesh tingled.
“Then, gentlemen, the oath.”
He cleared a space on the hard earthen floor, gesturing for men to move backward. Then, with a long-bladed knife, he cut a wide circle into the packed dirt. The men closest to the circle placed feet inside the line, then grasped hands, pushing deeper inside, while Hughson extended the border to make room for others. Cormac hesitated, thinking: What am I about to do? My only oath was sworn above the body of my father….
But he shared the feelings of these men, African and Irish, even if he felt no confidence about Hughson. He loved that thrilling word freedom. And he felt too that in some small way he was being admitted to the secret world of men. This was an American version of the men bound together in the Sacred Grove of Ireland.
He grasped the hands of a Spanish black named Torres and the young African named Sandy. He saw Quaco, his head bowed, holding the hands of two other Africans. Three men watched the full group: Kongo, Hughson, and Alvarado.
Hughson bowed his head and began speaking in a solemn voice, the others echoing his phrases.
“We swear (we swear) to hold secret (to hold secret) all that is spoken of here (all that is spoken of here) and to maintain (and to maintain) our faith in each other (our faith in each other) under punishment in Heaven or Hell (under punishment in Heaven or Hell) or here on the earth (or here on the earth), so help me God (so help me God).”
Kongo stepped into the center of the circle (with Cormac seeing him now as a prince of spirits) and spoke the oath in Yoruba, and the blacks responded. Alvarado did it in Spanish, and his men answered. There was a small cheer. Then Kongo assumed command of the room. He spoke in English and Yoruba, choosing words in a careful, direct way, and made the case for revolt. “Men are not horses,” he said in English. “Men have souls.” Now Cormac saw uncertainty in Hughson’s eyes. If he thought of himself an hour earlier as the leader of the revolt, that role had now been lost to Kongo. He did not look happy as Kongo used his fingers to enumerate his points. He separated the men into units of three. He reiterated the need for secrecy. Near the end, repeating this in Yoruba, he pulled one long finger across his throat, and about half the Africans laughed. Then he stepped out of the circle.
Hughson stepped forward, trying to assert again his own role. Cormac felt oddly isolated. Kongo had not assigned him to a three-man unit.
“As far as you Irish are concerned, the word is wait,” Hughson said. “Wait for word from us, from the high command. We’ll be in touch as the hour draws near. We’ll know our roles, what must be done. I’ll coordinate with the Africans. But the purpose is clear: to end these intolerable conditions.” Then he smiled. “As for now, gentlemen, the bar is open.”
A murmur. Scattered calls of “Hear, hear.” A pushing toward the bar. Some faces were flushed, as if the saying were as good as the doing. Kongo nodded at Cormac, placed fingers to his mouth, indicating they would speak later, and then went with his men out the back door into the falling snow.
Then Sarah came in from the kitchen, and the talk became politer, more guarded, less flushed with the possibility of rebellion. She laid plates on the bar piled with herrings, potatoes, hard-boiled eggs. Peggy showed up too, bursting with Caesar’s child. Cormac realized that Caesar had not been part of the group of oath-takers. And Mary Burton was nowhere in sight.
After a while, Cormac went out the back door to piss against a wall. The snow was falling more heavily, whipped by a wind. Cormac finished. Then heard his name. Mary Burton was at a top-floor window, her hair wild, a shawl upon her shoulders and neck.
“Be careful of that lot inside,” she said. “They’re going to cause a lot of trouble.”
“How are you, Mary?”
“Still in prison.”
“It can’t last.”
“Wait there.”
In a few minutes, she arrived at his side, in the deep shadows beside the building. She was bundled against the cold. They embraced and he could feel the warmth coming from her body.
“You must be wary,” she said. “I’ve heard John Hughson talking to his brother, that thieving lecher from Poughkeepsie. And what he’s saying here is not what he’s sayin’ to his brother.”
“What is it they’re saying?”
“It depends on how much drink is taken,” she said. “Sometimes he brags that he’ll soon be king of New York, the ruler of all he surveys, so to speak. Then he’s to be a viceroy for the Spanish crown, with the Spanish fleet in the harbor to fight off the bloody English. Then he’s to search the whole town, while the British get organized, and take everything of value, ship it off to the south somewhere, to bloody Cuba or Mexico or some such, with him and his brother in the ship. Or he’ll make a separate peace with the British, betray everybody, have them all hanged or burned, and then get the British to make him a lord, for services rendered to the Crown, and become governor.”