The room was clear. Jim pushed past Caesar into the next room and it was empty, and they entered the kitchen through different doors, together, each of them with their file partner covering. Smoke everywhere. They could hear shooting upstairs and something was on fire, because the reek of the smoke was in their lungs before they could see it. Everywhere, Caesar was looking for Bludner, but he wasn’t downstairs in the house.
Van Sluyt appeared at the back of the kitchen.
“Just the two upstairs, and they’re dead. Roof’s on fire a little.”
“Let it burn,” Caesar said. He knew why they had set it, and it gave him a grim joy that Bludner’s men expected help when they set the fire. He looked out the kitchen door toward the yard and a shot whispered past his head.
A new boy, not yet fifteen, came past Van Sluyt.
“Mr. Martin says they have the carriage shed, but Bludner’s in the stone barn, an’ he would like a word.”
“Send Mr. Martin my best compliments and tell him that I will attend him directly,” Caesar replied, and fired carefully at the loophole in the barn, just twenty paces away. There was a screech and he gave Van Sluyt and Jim a big smile.
“Jim, just hold the house. I’ll be back.”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
The light was enough that it could almost be called morning. Captain Stewart was annoyed that his whole plan to seize the barn had been frustrated by one man tripping on a root and falling just as the last defender reached the barn, but there was nothing that they could do. The barn had walls several feet thick, and would resist even a small cannon.
Caesar came up behind the low stone carriage house and found the two officers watching warily.
“We have to storm it,” Caesar said immediately.
“We’ll lose a lot of men,” said Stewart, looking at McDonald, who nodded.
“And then we’ll get in the doors and kill them all,” said Caesar. He looked at them and they at him, and McDonald gave him a little nod. Caesar felt that Stewart was resisting the notion because he couldn’t share the danger. Mr. Martin looked like he had his doubts.
Caesar said, “Give me a few minutes, sir. Perhaps we can get fire on to the roof of the barn and smoke them out.”
Martin brightened noticeably, and Stewart looked thoughtful.
“Let’s make sure we have the doors covered, then.”
Caesar was back at the kitchen door of the big house. He leaned out so his voice would project.
“Surrender!” he called.
He was answered by an obscenity.
“Come out or you will all be killed. If I have to storm that barn, there won’t be any prisoners.”
“You better git!” That might be Bludner’s voice. “You think we don’t have covering troops?”
“That’s what I think. All your covering troops is dead or taken, Bludner. That is you, am I right?”
Silence.
“Enough talk,” he yelled, motioning to Jim, who was moving very carefully at the corner of the barn where there wasn’t a loophole. “You have ten seconds to surrender, or we storm. Are you ready, Guides?”
A roar, and Jim was at the base of the barn. It didn’t have an overhang on the top side, and he was safe, right up against the wall. He started to light a hasty torch of linen and tow and fat from a coal.
There were noises from the barn as if in debate, and a single pistol shot.
“No one here is surrenderin’. Come an’ take us.”
“Try this, then,” said Caesar, and nodded to Jim, who leaned back and threw his torch high, high in the dark, where it spun like a child’s firework for two revolutions before landing in the thatch of the roof. Jim flattened himself against the building again.
“Don’t seem like no storm!” called the defiant voice inside.
Caesar waited. Fire takes time. The morning was very quiet, as if the first burst of musketry had stunned the birds, and they heard a little rattle of shots far off. And then, as if by magic, the thatch caught in one gallant sheet of flame.
Caesar wondered what it would be like to be inside the barn, with the smoke and the knowledge of what waited for them in the yard. He thought of the ancient Caesar and the pirates, and he smiled.
The main door of the barn opened, and a handful of men staggered out with handkerchiefs and neck rollers over their mouths. They threw their muskets out first. No one fired, and they were ordered out to the open ground, where some of Stewart’s men took them with ungentle hands. McDonald made sure they saw Knealey, too. Then another group, perhaps five men. Caesar was leaning well forward, looking for Bludner, when he realized with shock that the door closest to the kitchen had opened.
A thick knot of men burst from the door and raced on, scattering as soon as they were clear. One fell over another, and a second stumbled, but the others were running like rabbits from a dog, while the Guides were mostly watching the men at the front surrender.
Jim shot one and immediately began to reload. Van Sluyt shot the one who had stumbled, and Caesar waited too long for Bludner and realized that he had been the first from the door and was already clear of the yard. He shot another man and turned from the door to run through the house. Jim was with him. Virgil fired one-handed from a window and gave him a shout as he whipped through the main room and out the front door. He could see the shapes of four or five men as they ducked into the same woods he and his men had waited in just a few minutes ago, and he reached back for a cartridge as he ran. If Bludner wanted a race, then so be it.
Suddenly Major Stewart was on them, his horse careening into one man and kicking at another, a beautiful capriole. Stewart’s saber transcribed a vicious arc, and a third man was down, and then Bludner and another were clear away into the woods, where the horse could not go. And one of them stopped, because there was movement at the edge of the woods. Stewart whirled his horse and reared it, and the rifle ball caught the horse in the breast, bouncing off the thick bone and leaving a long score and a steady flow of blood. The horse slumped and Stewart fell heavily under his horse as Caesar went by. He gave Stewart a glance, unable to tell how serious the wound was, and focused on his prey, and Stewart cursed. “Get him!” he shouted.
Caesar bit off the back of a cartridge and stopped for one stride to get priming into the pan, and then dashed on. Behind him, there was another burst of firing by the barn. He thought Jim might still be with him.
“See to the major,” he roared. Jim stopped with Stewart, but he looked and saw Virgil, his arm bound against his chest, running along behind. Then he was in among the trees with Bludner and another man.
He could see now. There was enough light. He was surprised at how small the woodlot was in the light. The branches were still moving from their passage, and he followed a little slower, patient. By the time he cleared the wood, he saw them disappearing over a low hill, hundreds of yards ahead. Then he started to run in earnest.
He wanted to catch them before Robinson’s men took them. They were headed directly into the Loyal Americans over the ridge, and he didn’t want the mess of their being prisoners. He didn’t want the chance of escape. He wanted Bludner dead. He ran a little faster, still saving some for the last gasp. He was utterly confident in his running. He could run very fast, and he could run forever.
He flew over the ground, and as he crested the next gentle rise he saw them clearly, Bludner ahead and moving well, and the other man slower and laboring. Caesar looked over his shoulder and saw Virgil coming along, his face gray with effort. Caesar stretched into a long sprint, angling a little as he came down the slope. The other man looked back at Caesar and swerved. Then he stopped, clearly done in by the run, and raised his musket. Caesar ran on. If this man was loaded, then Bludner had tried a shot at Stewart and was empty, because neither of them had had time to load. The man aimed carefully and Caesar could see his arms trembling with the effort and he swerved to make the man re-aim. Caesar saw the puff of smoke and heard the report, but not the bullet. The man was too spent to aim well, which was what Caesar had expected. Caesar ran directly at him, bowled him over at full speed and ran on. The man was thrown aside.