But the lesson of Pride and its inevitable downfall that Rose had so recently delivered to Major Dr. Keen was now to be visited on her, with great severity. For the person approaching was not van Clynne but Keen himself. The doctor spurred his drug-stimulated horse, the lingering flicker of pain in his rump where Rose's bullet had buried itself an extra incentive. Hunkered down on his horse like an English riding champion — which indeed he had been during his youth — he plucked her from the roadway with no more difficulty than if he'd picked up an injured bird.
Freedom's partisans are not so easily vanquished. Rose punched and kicked at the side of Keen's horse, forcing the doctor to slow the animal and concentrate on his steering. As she felt Keen's pressure lighten, Rose sunk her teeth viciously into his thigh, which had an immediate effect — he dropped her on the road.
The girl was barely able to get her arms out to break her fall as she tumbled against the hard clay and rocks. Spilling in a heap, she righted herself and flew for the woods, losing a shoe and her shawl in the process.
Keen cut her off, pulling the horse around and riding quickly to the edge of the path. Rose turned and darted back and he was before her again, flashing his sardonic smile. The flickering rays of the early light glanced off the rings on his fingers as a golden beam slashed from above and caught her on the neck.
Rose yelped in pain as she fell down on her back, hurt by the blow from Keen's cane. She remembered the Segallas tucked into her sock and reached for it, only to feel the heavy pressure of Keen's shoe on her hand.
The doctor flicked his cane and a long blade of silver shot from the tip like the tongue of a serpent's mouth.
"A very pretty face," he told her. "What a shame if I shall have to cut it severely."
The point of the knife brushed lightly on her cheek, and suddenly Rose felt incredibly warm, as if she'd been placed next to a fire. Indeed, she was convinced that had happened — for her conscious mind fled, and she lapsed back against the ground in dark limbo.
Keen examined the small slice he had made on her cheek before hauling her aboard his horse. It was a superficial wound, though it easily accomplished its purpose — the introduction of a sleeping drug into her blood system. The effects ordinarily would last a full hour, but given his experience with van Clynne, the doctor took no chances now. He threw her over his horse and returned quickly to the animal she had abandoned; the horse's ties served as hard restraints against her wrists and ankles. He then took a small envelope from his satchel, and mixed it with a few drops of a blue liquid contained in a dropper bottle; the doctor had to use a spoon to complete the operation and the mixture was crude and inexact. Nonetheless, he could tell from the scent — a light mixture of chamomile and licorice masking a more medicinal flavor — that the proper reaction had taken place. And the drug had the correct effect: after Rose was forced to swallow, her body suddenly bolted upright, eyes wide open.
Rose was both a bold and strong young woman, a fine example of American breeding. But she was no match for Keen or his formula. Her throat burned with the hot liquid, then she began to feel dizzy.
Keen, standing at her side, began to make suggestions to help the process of the drug along. Though her limbs were clamped with tight straps, he told her she was free. He suggested that her arms had been changed to wings; he could tell by her smile that she believed she had escaped him at last.
"Who is the eagle flying near you?" Keen asked in a level voice, as if he saw the vision he was introducing to her mind. The technique had been taught to him by the African necromancer who gave him the drugs.
"Colonel Gibbs," replied Rose.
"Your lover?"
She shook her head. "My fiance Robert is working on the chain. Colonel Gibbs is going to protect it. He'll peck the Tories' eyes out. I must fly to General Putnam, and tell him. The fat Dutchman will help. The Tories plan to attack tomorrow night. I — must — go."
Keen let her body collapse back onto the ground as the drug's more useful effects wore off. She could now be expected to sleep for several hours, and would wake with a terrible headache — assuming, of course, that Keen decided to keep her alive until then.
The doctor faced a minor dilemma, in that the girl had revealed that this Gibbs character was trying to sabotage a British military operation. While his own mission naturally took ultimate priority, he was nonetheless bound to thwart them, especially since the British target was the chain, which he properly understood to be the key rebel defense on the upper Hudson. He would have to alert his fellow countrymen.
There was only one ship on the river this far north that could serve as a command post for such an operation, the HMS Richmond. Keen's best course of action was to find the ship and its commander, inform him of the plot, and continue with his business.
This was not necessarily a detour, he realized; it might very well lead him directly to his two targets. Nonetheless, he was annoyed, for it meant he would have to postpone his dissection of the light sack of flesh he hoisted in front of himself on the horse.
As Keen turned the animal back toward the cottage where his carriage had been left, Rose murmured something. Still in the last throes of the suggestive phase of the drug, she repeated it at Keen's request: "Just let me catch a wink of sleep, darling."
"Oh yes," chuckled the doctor, patting her cheek as he set off. "You'll need your rest."
Chapter Thirty
The rangers had been gone from Stoneman's for nearly an hour by the time Busch arrived. But there was still plenty of evidence that they had found hot action there — the captain quickly noticed the damage to the barn, and then saw the crude grave of his soldier. He jumped from his horse and knelt at the tree-limb cross, convinced by some unworldly sense that the man below had been killed by his nemesis, Jake Smith. It was as if the knowledge was contained in the soil he rubbed between his fingers.
"Damn you, Jake Smith," he cursed as he rose. "I don't know what your true name is, but when I find out it will be sung in infamy throughout the land." "Infamy!" repeated Wedget, still sitting on his horse. "Kill Jake Smith!" "You!" shouted Busch. "Off the horse." "But — " "Off, I say!" Busch took two strides to his horse and grabbed his pistol.
In that short distance his stature seemed to double. Wedget slid off the horse quickly — only to find the captain standing before him, pistol in hand.
"You gave me your word you'd save me," cried the former bully.
"I did nothing of the sort," said Busch. He cocked back the lock as tears rolled down Wedget's face. "Off with your shoes."
"But my feet are swollen inside."
"I will shoot them off, if you wish."
Wedget yanked away at the boots with all his might. It was plain that he was speaking the truth; his feet were in horrible shape, filled with pus and bleeding besides. Busch realized no further precaution was necessary against his being followed.
" A word of any of this to the rebels, a word of me or any citizen loyal to the Crown, and I will search you out and pull the tongue from your mouth with my own fingers," promised Busch. He pointed the gun back up the road. " That direction will take you to New York, if you're lucky."
" B — But I want to come with you."
Busch's answer was only to point the pistol at Wedget's face. The bully took a step backwards in fear, and then the man who yesterday had proclaimed himself complete despot of his squalid domain lost control of his sphincter.
So may it be with all bullies, and especially that one most pernicious, King George III himself. Busch shook his head in disgust, then leapt to his horse and galloped off in pursuit of the damnable Smith. Wedget remained sitting in the dust for a long while, sobbing softly to himself.