Lavien quickly lit the fire, poking at it until it burned vigorously. He then went over to the nearest tree and broke off several small twigs, which he put upon the blaze.
“They’re moist, and will make the fire produce more smoke.” He gazed about him and took one of the smaller pieces of wood from the fire, a rounded branch not more than a foot long, and narrow enough to easily hold in the hand, and lifted it like a torch. “This way,” he said, gesturing away from the road.
“Why do you want that?” I asked.
“You will see why,” he answered, in a grim tone that suggested confidence but no satisfaction. “We must not let this fire go out.”
I followed him out of the clearing. We moved back several feet, that we might not be seen, or not seen easily, from the vicinity of the fire. He held his torch behind a tree and squatted, his other hand in his bag, his eyes wide and unblinking.
“Let us hope they are as rushed as we are,” he said quietly. “These Westerners are good hunters, as stealthy and deadly in their own way as the Maroons of Surinam.”
“I understand,” I said.
“If we die, we do not get our message to Hamilton.”
“And we’ll be dead. That is undesirable in itself.” I felt tension, urgency, and anxiety for what must come next. It was not precisely fear, though there was fear in it. I am not one of those men who go into battle with nothing but courage in his heart. I felt fear aplenty, but enough other things that it was merely one flavor of the stew.
“I’ve no doubt,” he continued, “that they have good shots among them, and they could pick us off, if they choose, before we even sensed they were near.”
“I said I understand, damn you.”
He grinned at me. “Just making certain.”
He muttered something under his breath. It sounded like a prayer, and it sounded like a foreign language, though I know not know if it was Hebrew or the heathen Maroon tongue.
Then he was silent and there was little else but silence, the silence of the woods in winter when men have come tramping through moments before. There was a rustle of dead branches and birdsong, sporadic but distant. I heard the click of speedy animal claws not far away-perhaps a hearty squirrel that had not slept for the winter or had awoken early.
In a few moments one of our pursuers walked into the clearing. He was an older man, missing an eye, of average height but thin build, with fair hair and pale skin, somewhat blemished with freckles and the scars of smallpox. His clothes looked several sizes too big for him, and he comported himself with the shambling attitude of the habitual drinker.
The one-eyed rebel looked at the fire and then turned back the way he had come and let out a whistle, the kind that sounds precisely like a man trying to sound like a bird. In a moment, Whippo and the third whiskey rebel walked briskly into the clearing. Soon the trio was circling the fire, speaking in low tones, attempting to make sense of it, read some logic into its presence, some indication of our location.
Whippo turned, not precisely toward us but close enough, facing a deep thicket of wood. Hands upon his narrow hips, he called, “I know you’re in there, Saunders. Why not come out and talk things over? You’re taking it all a bit hard. I suppose it’s our own fault, making you think us so ruthless. We’re not violent men, just clever ones. We need not be at odds.”
Lavien looked at me and put a finger to his lips, as though I would need to be told.
“It’s been but a game,” Whippo called out. “You and I being enemies, Saunders-I never felt it. If you knew who we were, and the wrongs we’ve suffered from Hamilton and Duer, you would join with us. We know you’re no aristocrat like those fellows. The violence that’s been done today is our fault. I’ll own it. You come out now, and we’ll talk. We’ll parley. We’ll lay down our weapons.” He squatted to the earth and set his gun upon the hard ground.
I watched him with such intensity that I did not at first see Lavien pull his hand out of the bag. Only when he held his object against his little torch did I see it and understand. It was a ball of cast iron, as shiny as silver, a bit larger than an orange, with a pair of decorative horns molded onto it, as though it were a bull or a devil. From between the horns rose a wick.
It took me a moment to recognize the object, for I had not seen one since the war. It would appear that Lavien had thought to bring with him a grenade.
He held the wick to his torch and let it burn. And then he held it in his hand. My eyes must have registered concern because he looked at the wick and then at the men, to tell me he dared not toss it too soon.
That wick seemed to me the slowest ever made. It felt as though we waited for long minutes, though it could only have been a few seconds. I lived in fear that the men would see us and come running, they would lose interest and wander off, or sense a trap and flee. I feared that Lavien would misjudge and wait too long. Indeed, the wick grew shorter and shorter, and it took every bit of self-control I possessed not to shout at him, to tell him to throw it, for love of God.
It burned with a fiery glow and a faint hiss, and when it seemed to me that Lavien had waited too long already, he tossed the metal ball so that it landed just before the fire, bounced slightly, and came to rest within the little blaze. I knew not if I should be more impressed with his aim or his cleverness. Had the ball landed before them, they should have seen it and fled. Instead, the three men looked at the fire, certain they had seen something move, yet unable to find any sign of aught new upon the scene. The one-eyed man squatted down and peered into the blaze, bringing his face in very close.
Then came the flash.
The grenade burst in terrible cry of fire and heat and screaming metal. It sent out a rain of fire and dirt and broken branches. Leaves and wet lumps of snow fell from the skies. Birds took flight. Unseen animal feet scurried. I turned away and threw myself to the ground, though Lavien did not move or turn away. He must have known, to the inch, the grenade’s range. When I turned back, Lavien was already standing.
“Give me the pistols,” he said.
I did so, and he walked toward the clearing. Two of the men were dead, beyond any doubt. One body was entirely without its head, another nearly torn in two, missing an arm not to be seen anywhere. The dirt had turned a mottled black, and little mounds of snow were spotted pink with blood.
Astonishingly, Isaac Whippo was still alive. The grenade must have blasted away from him, for he sat upright, holding one arm, dangling and clearly broken, in the other. His face was wet with blood, and one eye was injured and closed, perhaps ruined. I had mocked this man, sought to belittle and humiliate him, and now he rocked back and forth, slowly, deliberately, like an old man with his pipe.
“He might yet live,” I said softly.
“No,” said Lavien. “He won’t.” He raised his pistol and fired it into Whippo’s head.
I turned away, though I saw the flash of the powder and the smoke of the barrel. When I turned back, Whippo’s body lay upon the ground, folded and still. A staggering revulsion coursed through me, for what I had seen and for Lavien, this little fount of heartless violence.
Lavien stepped to me and took me by the shoulders. He made me face him, made me look into his dark eyes, small and hot. “Understand me,” he said in a low voice. “I have now murdered a wounded man. That’s how important this is. It isn’t about money or pride or power. It is about the future of the most audacious experiment in human liberty ever attempted. I do not want this government to do what I have just done. I take it on myself.”
I swallowed. “You Jews have a fine history of taking sins upon yourself.”
He looked in the general direction of the road. “You’re a funny man. Let’s go.”