“ Who’s he?” asked the officer.
“ My son,” said van Clynne.
At that, everyone raised an eyebrow, including Jake.
“ He doesn’t look Dutch,” said the sergeant. “He’s dressed like a macaroni.” Macaroni was a derogatory term for a dandy, and though Jake would not have been taken for such in the city, out here the fine cut of his clothes tended to stand out.
“ The ways of the young,” said van Clynne, shaking his head. “I wish I could talk some sense into his head. Perhaps you can.”
“ Be happy to try,” said the sergeant, reaching towards Jake’s horse.
Jake pulled the reins around and answered him with a string of oaths in ill-formed pidgin Dutch. Though ruinous to van Clynne’s ears, they were enough to convince the soldiers. The Dutchman grabbed his papers back and prodded his horse forward, setting off down the road. Jake followed quickly.
“ Why did you give them a hard time?” he asked when they were out of earshot.
“ They were British.” To van Clynne it seemed a natural explanation. “I told you the hat would draw attention, didn’t I?”
“ Do you really think they’d believe I was your son?”
“ What do I care?” said van Clynne. “You’re a deserter, and they won’t shoot you for that.”
“ What do you mean, I’m a deserter?”
“ You are. You’re a Loyalist who’s had enough of the fight. I’d wager that your neighbors drove you from your home and sent you packing. Rattlesnake cure, indeed.”
“ I’m an apothecary,” said Jake, adding a slightly mournful note to his voice, as if all van Clynne said were true.
“ Yes, well, I’ll take my twenty crowns now, if you please.”
“ We agreed on Montreal. I have a friend there who’ll give me the money.”
“ Listen up, fellow. You have more than twenty crowns in your purse, I dare say. I don’t care to know your business, but my guess is that you want to get north as quickly as possible, to see your friend or family, whichever it may be. Now I have business to transact in several houses near here and I will be all day and possibly the next two or three about it. You may tag along if you wish, but we’ve gotten through the America lines, which was where the danger lay for you. Wasn’t it? Well?”
Jake nodded solemnly. Van Clynne was quite pleased with himself.
“ Cut through this field and take the road there,” he said, pointing to his right. “You’ll come along the highway, and you can ride straight to Montreal. It’s eighty miles at the most, no more.”
“ How do I know you’re not sending me into a trap?” said Jake, caught up in his role as a Tory coward.
“ If I were going to turn you in, I would have done so near Ticonderoga. Besides, there’s no profit in it — unless, of course, you don’t pay me now.”
Jake reached inside his clothes to the money belt around his waist. He counted out four gold guineas and then two crowns. Together the coins could have kept a Boston family in clothes and bread for more than a month.
Van Clynne examined the coins to see if they had been shaved, a common practice. Each was intact and practically new, an oddity he noted but did not remark on. Before finding their way to Jake’s money belt they had been in the charge of a British paymaster, but the tale of that detour lies outside our immediate scope.
“ Thank you, good sir,” said the Dutchman, doffing his hat as he dropped the coins into a purse he kept on a long string around his neck. “And now, I bid you farewell.”
“ Good luck in your business,” said Jake. “Until we meet again.”
“ I’d get rid of the hat if I were you,” were van Clynne’s parting words.
The city of Montreal lies at the foot of Mount Royal on a strategic island in the St. Lawrence. The great French explorer Jacques Cartier discovered it and claimed it for the greater glory and profit of the French kingdom in 1535, though it was not until 1642 that white men made a lasting settlement. The profit in question was largely spiritual, with the Association of Montreal formed by Sieur Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve aiming squarely at converting the heathen and adding their population to heaven.
The French, and their Jesuit priests especially, felt a special calling to promulgate the Word in the wilderness, baptizing freely and spreading the spirit of Christianity by whatever means necessary. Smallpox was not meant to be one of those means, but it was nonetheless distributed more quickly and efficiently than the scriptures.
Jeffrey Amherst took Montreal for the British in 1760. Robert Montgomery took it for the Americans in 1775. By the fall of 1776, Benedict Arnold and his tattered band of disease-ravaged soldiers had given it back, abandoning it in disarray.
By that time Jake was already hard at work for General Greene in New York. After being wounded at Quebec in late December 1775, he’d been evacuated to a makeshift hospital. There he’d refused to let the surgeon take off his leg, preferring death to life as a cripple. His stubbornness had cost him great suffering, but Jake had gambled that he could survive the wound without infection or complication, and won. In truth, the decision had been made at least partly from the wild despair of having seen his friend Captain Thomas and then General Montgomery die but a few yards from him on the battlefield. For a dark moment Jake Stewart Gibbs had not truly cared whether he lived or died.
A great deal of time had passed since then. Jake shifted himself on his horse as he rode along the St. Lawrence, fighting off the sad memories as he steadied himself for the tasks ahead. He decided to promote himself from druggist to doctor — his new cover story would proclaim him a country physician heading to the big city for supplies. Jake, though not specifically trained as a doctor, knew a good portion of medicine from his family’s trade and his own studies of natural philosophy. He could not only fool any soldiers who questioned him: he could probably treat them better than the military quacks at their camps.
The only deficiency in his story was his dress. As the British sergeant had pointed out, he looked a bit too much the gentleman to be the rough traveler. He adjusted his appearance by loosening his shirt and removing the eagle feather stuck in his cap, but a wary mind at the city’s fort could easily find questions for which vague answers would be his only reply.
Which was one reason he didn’t intend on going straight in the front door, at least not tonight. Another was the fact that he was tired and hungry, and it was already quite late. The last, and most important, reason was that he was hoping to renew an old acquaintance.
“ Jesu — back from the dead!” exclaimed Marie Sacre when she opened the door.
“ Comment vas-tu? ” he replied in a bashful and rusty French.
“ Tres bien. But my God, I never expected to see you! Zut!
“ Can a poor traveler enter?”
“ Of course!” Marie’s hair was held back in a simple, almost frontier style, but the thick, smooth material of her mauve-colored dress hinted that she was not merely a plain farmer’s wife. The smooth cotton flattered her shape and at the same time was warm and comforting.
“ Comme les francais sont amiables!” said Jake. The French are so easy.
“ Don’t get fresh,” she said, pulling him along into the front room of the large, two-story brick building.
As Jake took a step onto the wide-beamed floor, a long narrative of his journey formed on his tongue. He was just able to cut it off when he saw the room was not empty.
Not at all. Its occupant rose from his chair, dressed in the bright red jacket favored by followers of His Royal Majesty, the King of England.
“ Captain Clark, let me introduce you to my cousin, Jake Gibson,” said Marie, putting her arm on his shoulder as she amended his name. “Jake is quite a traveler. He’s just come from Quebec.”
“ Indirectly,” said Jake, his only option to play along with what she said.
“ Then you must have seen Burgoyne!” exclaimed the British captain, taking his hand and pumping it like a glassblower’s bellows with a strong, crushing grip.