Girty laughed. “It’ll be over soon, Major, and then you can go and puke all over your boots if you want.” Girty laughed even harder when Fitzroy found himself unable to respond.
The Indians piled bushes underneath the feet of the victims and set them alight. The carefully controlled fires first seared their lower limbs and then their torsos. The prisoners writhed and twisted in vain attempts to escape the slowly rising flames. A few moments later, one of them slumped over. His heart had given out.
“Well that lucky bastard’s dead already,” Girty said as an Indian reached in and scalped the unmoving man with one quick motion.
The second man didn’t stop screaming and writhing until the flames were almost up to his chin. An Iroquois warrior leaned in and ripped off his scalp, but got his arm badly burned for his efforts. This pleased Fitzroy and the other Indians thought it was hilarious.
As the bodies charred and the stinking fire died down, the Indians drifted off. “Now what?” asked Fitzroy. The stench of burned flesh was adding to his problem. He wondered what Hannah Van Doorn would have thought of this. Even though she was a child of the frontier, had she ever seen anything like this? He wanted to talk to her. She would know what to say to comfort him. He missed her. Damn it to hell.
“The brutes are satisfied,” Girty said and spat on the ground, “At least for the moment.”
Behind him a dull popping sound followed by laughter drew their attention. One of the prisoner’s skulls had exploded from the heat. “Yeah, they’re satisfied for now,’ Girty said. “Next they’re gonna get good and drunk.”
That, Fitzroy thought, was a magnificent idea.
* * *
Tallmadge looked at the small piece of paper in his hand. The pigeon who’d brought it stood proudly and heroically on the table and puffed out its chest. It promptly spoiled the scene by dropping a load on said table.
Tallmadge and the others chuckled. “How appropriate,” Tallmadge said. “Would that we had a million pigeons that could do the same for Burgoyne and his army.”
Will joined in the brief laughter. “But what’s the message? Burgoyne’s through building a depot and is on the move once again, isn’t he?”
“And perhaps only two weeks away,” Tallmadge said. “Time to prepare our wills, Will.”
Drake winced at the bad pun. “I would if I had anything to leave. I am as poor as the day I escaped from that hulk in New York.”
“Aren’t we all,” Tallmadge added. “But, think of all the wealth that was abandoned by so many of the people who are here. Yes, people like Franklin, Schuyler, and Hancock are considered traitors by the British and subject to be hanged. But don’t you think that a goodly portion of their wealth could have been used to buy forgiveness, much in the way that the papist priests require a payment as penance from their parishioners before they’re forgiven?”
Schuyler grinned. “The papists have the right idea. Say you’re sorry and you’re permitted to buy your way into heaven.”
Tallmadge shook his head. “I think your understanding of Catholic theology is highly suspect at best, my dear General, but the principal is the same-forgiveness can be bought and sold. It is a commodity. It might be something that could be traded by those Dutch investors who congregate on Wall Street in New York if someone could figure out how to market forgiveness in the form of shares.”
“In times like these, wealth doesn’t much matter,” Schuyler said quietly. “Whatever I have lost in the way of money and lands, I can make back if given the chance. However, I cannot earn back my life if I lose it.”
Will thought back to his months-years? — as a prisoner of the British and how he’d been starved. His position then had been far more hopeless than the one he was in now. At least now he could fight back.
So too could people like Owen Wells. Owen had ridden back from the skirmish where he’d been wounded as quickly as any wounded man could. He’d ignored the pain from his body so he could heal and get back to the fighting.
Sarah was another example of the wealth that was now his although, he considered ruefully, he’d yet to possess her.
Tallmadge poured brandies into small cups. There wasn’t much good liquor left, although, like the tea, they’d tried to distill some of their own. It had been only marginally successful at best, although a number of men and women had managed to get falling down drunk from testing the results.
Schuyler raised his cup. “Gentlemen, let me propose a toast to the one thing of value that we now possess that, if we are successful, we can bequeath to our heirs.”
“Hear, hear,” they chorused, “To Liberty.”
* * *
Silent and menacing, they moved like Viking longships descending upon the hapless British coast where they would fight the soldiers of Alfred the Great or Ethelred the Unready. The cold mist and rain hid them from their unsuspecting prey. In moments they would be ashore, wielding swords and axes to chop down the inept guardians of the land. When that pleasant task was completed, they would begin pillaging the rude homes and ravaging the local women. Many women wouldn’t resist much. Instead they would feel honored to be the concubine of mighty Viking warriors. Fires and destruction would show where they had been.
Danforth chuckled softly. At least it sounded good, he thought as Benedict Arnold’s small armada moved slowly and soundlessly through the cold, wet Lake Michigan morning. The air was calm, so the crews used the sweeps to row through the flat lake.
As with the trip north to Fort Mackinac, they had begun by making better time than expected and, according to plan, Arnold’s orders called for them to anchor in the St. Joseph River, which was about a day’s sail from where Burgoyne was supposed to reach the lake and meet up them.
Their schedule was somewhat disrupted by a couple of violent squalls that arose shortly after they had left Mackinac Island and cost them one barge sunk and two badly damaged after they collided with each other. Danforth had worked hard to help pull the injured from the water, along with a couple of the dead, and received the silent gratitude from the crews for his efforts. Even Arnold complimented him tersely. Arrogant shit, Danforth thought.
After that, they made it a point to sail closer to the Michigan shoreline, which would enable them to beach the barges should another storm arise. None did, but the route did give Danforth and Rudyard an opportunity to view the coastline. They were both astonished by a number of large sand dunes towering several hundred feet into the sky.
It truly was a land of wonders, Danforth thought. Not only did North America seem to go on forever, but he had seen the marvel of the falls near Niagara and now dunes like those from the Sahara emerging from the lake.
There was significant evidence of Indian presence along the coast as well, and Rudyard informed Danforth that the lake was teaming with edible fish.
“Which is part of the reason the rebels haven’t starved,” Rudyard said. “You can even chop holes in the ice in the wintertime and fish. The silly creatures are just dying to take your bait and become your dinner.”
As they continued to sail south, one new problem had arisen. The British fort on the St. Joseph River had been abandoned several years before, and there was no one with the flotilla who was certain where either it or the river was. Since it was incumbent that they not sail too far south and alert the rebels of their presence, they’d slowed to a crawl and sent the smaller warship, the Snake, to search the coast and find the bloody thing. So far the search had not been successful.
“You’d think we were searching for the Northwest Passage,” Danforth muttered. The Northwest Passage was the legendary and likely mythical waterway that supposedly connected the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans via Canada. Its lure had drawn many explorers in earlier years, but few now thought it existed.