City of Dreams (50 page)

The other man chuckled. “Sure and didn’t my old mother tell me as much when I joined King George’s bloody English army? C’mon, get down. We’ve to go the rest of the way on foot.”

DaSilva swung out of the saddle. He wore his customary white satin breeches and black satin coat, but a rifle was slung beside his saddle. It, too, was black, with a highly polished golden oak stock, shiny brass trim, and a barrel nearly five feet long.

Shea had a knife and a native tomahawk at his waist, and a musket slung over his shoulder. The gun was an ordinary seventy-five-caliber smoothbore Brown Bess. He’d probably taken it with him when he decided to part company with His Majesty’s 35th Regiment of Foot. He eyed DaSilva’s weapon with something akin to lust. “C’mon,” he repeated. “T’others be waitin’.”

DaSilva loosed the rifle, put it over his shoulder, then looked around for a place to hide his mare. Numerous treaties had been signed, and most of the natives had long since moved farther north, but these woods were still prowled by Indians traveling alone or in small groups. A horse like this in plain view would be gone in an instant. Another man stepped out of the bushes. “This here’s Laktu,” Shea said. “He’ll look after your horse.”

DaSilva eyed the savage. He was naked except for the moccasins on his feet and the breechclout tied at his waist, which was barely large enough to cover his prick. The front of the Indian’s scalp was shaved clean from ear to ear, and his right cheek was tattooed with a red crescent and three blue triangles. His earlobes had been split and hung almost to his chin, weighted with carved shells and silver ornaments. Mohawk. DaSilva breathed a little easier. So far so good. But he’d been dealing with Shea for two years, long enough to learn not to trust him.

Or the Mohawks, either. This one had a tomahawk and a wicked-looking knife tucked in his waistband, and a musket slung over one shoulder and a powder horn over the other. The
bastardo
was a walking armory. Nonetheless, his eyes, like Shea’s, devoured the long rifle. DaSilva handed over the horse’s reins. “Thank you, Laktu. I trust my mare will be no trouble.”

The Mohawk didn’t answer. Shea grunted something in his language. Laktu replied with a few words; then both men nodded. Shea plunged into the thick undergrowth beside the path. DaSilva followed.

They met the others in a large clearing by a stream, some ten minutes from the path. They were seven: the Irishman and himself and five Mohawks, all looking pretty much like the one called Laktu, all carrying muskets as well as knives and tomahawks. It seemed to DaSilva that he and Shea had walked a straight line to get here, easy to retrace, but he knew that was an illusion. Left to himself he’d never find his way back. Not to worry, when the meeting was over either he’d be escorted to the path and his horse would be returned, or his scalped carcass would be left here to rot in West Chester. The rifle was the key.

DaSilva lifted the gun. The noonday sun glinted off the shiny brass fittings and the fifty-two-inch black barrel. “Here you see it, gentleman. The means of defeating your enemies.”

He waited, but Shea didn’t translate. Instead he spoke to DaSilva. “C’mon, Jew, sure and you said all that. ’Tis past time for words. Show ’em.”

“Very well. Tell them to select their finest marksman.”

This time Shea spoke a few words to the Mohawk with a long feather behind his ear, clearly some kind of chief. The man listened, then uttered what was obviously a command. The brave who stepped forward looked about fifteen.

“Excellent,” DaSilva said. “Now tell this fine young man to prepare to fire his Brown Bess.”

Shea spoke to the boy, who took his musket from his shoulder, expertly fingered the lock into half-cock position, and poured a bit of powder into the mechanism. He poured more powder into the barrel, then a lead musket ball, and tamped the combination home with the iron ramrod, which was then shoved back into its holder on the gun’s barrel.

DaSilva had been counting. Ten seconds and the boy had the musket in position and ready to fire. Remarkable. The redcoats were drilled until they could load, fire, and reload four times in a minute. In truth, excessive speed didn’t help. If you tried to fire a musket six times a minute the barrel would burst from the heat and blow you straight to hell. More important, the Brown Bess suited the British way of fighting, not the way of the savages.

“Tell him he’s to fire at that red kerchief tied to the tree over there.”

The tree was a hundred yards away on the other side of the stream, the red bandana had come from DaSilva’s pocket. Now it was tied to a high branch, easily seen from the clearing. “Go on,” DaSilva said. “Tell him to shoot down the flag.”

Shea spoke out of the corner of his mouth, without looking at DaSilva. “’Tis a frigging fool you’ll be making of him. It can’t be done.”

“Not with the Brown Bess,” DaSilva said quietly. “Now do it, Irishman, or we’re both wasting a fine summer’s day. And likely to wind up hairless for our trouble.”

“But we’re the ones was after selling ’em the muskets,” Shea whispered. “Have you lost your—”

“I’ve lost nothing. But you may lose us both our scalps.” The Mohawks might not understand English, but they were plainly aware that the two white men were arguing, and judging from their looks, they didn’t like it. “Now,” DaSilva bit out, feeling the sweat rolling down his back. “Tell the brave to shoot at the flag.”

Shea hesitated a moment more, then translated the command. The boy looked from the pair of white men to his companions. The one with the feather behind his ear nodded. The small click of the flintlock coming into fully open position could be heard in the silence. Then there was the mighty thunderclap of the musket.

The acrid smoke hung in the still air for a long few seconds. When it cleared, the red flag could be seen exactly where it had been, hanging limp and unharmed.

The Mohawks were muttering among themselves. “What are they saying?” DaSilva asked as he prepared to load the long rifle.

“Sure and what do you bloody expect they’re sayin’? That the target is too far away. And that you did it deliberately. To make ’em look bad.”

“Too far for a tomahawk as well, is it not?”

Shea didn’t have to ask. “Aye, a bloody sight too far.”

“Very well, tell them”—he was tamping home the powder and the lead ball, using the elegant brass rod fitted to the barrel—“tell them I placed the target at such a distance to demonstrate the superiority of this weapon. Tell them when the Mohawks have rifles like these they will be the finest marksmen in America.”

Shea translated the message. The Indians did not look convinced.

DaSilva’s weapon was ready. He knelt, hoisted it to his shoulder, sighted the flag (the Brown Bess was so ill suited for aiming it wasn’t fitted with a sight), and waited until Shea had finished speaking. Then he fired.

The great length of the barrel produced an even louder roar than the musket, and unlike the musket, the rifle had a perceptible recoil. But the braves didn’t notice that DaSilva had been knocked flat on his ass. They were pointing above the haze of smoke to the empty place in the sky where the branch and the red flag had been.

“Bloody hell,” the Irishman whispered. “Sure I’ve been after hearing about the God-rotting things, but ’tis never before I’ve seen one fired. Bloody hell.”

“Precisely.” DaSilva got to his feet, brushing dirt from his grass-stained white satin breeches and adjusting his black satin coat. “Very bloody. And straight to hell for all the enemies of the Mohawk. The rifle guarantees it. A hundred of them. Probably in three months’ time. Go on, tell them.”

“Tell me again how much,” Shea said instead.

“Same price I quoted before. Seventeen pounds each. Gold or silver. No paper money. You pay me half now, half on delivery.”

“Three months, you say?”

“If we’re lucky. It could take as long as six.”

“Why so God-rotting long?”

DaSilva sighed. They’d been over this before. Repeatedly. “Because, Mr. Shea, getting hold of these things is a difficult and a delicate business. The patterns for building long rifles are kept locked in the Tower of London, just like those for the Brown Bess. And there’s a great many fewer of them around. We cannot steal what we need. So to get any quantities they must be assembled here in the colonies.”

“And who is it be after doin’ the bloody assembling?”

“Ah, Mr. Shea, I’m not likely to tell you that, am I? Now, why don’t you make your arrangements with these fine redmen for however many beaver skins you can get them to promise on whatever delivery schedule suits your busy trading business, and let us both leave these infernal woods with our scalps intact.” The August sun was directly overhead and the sweat was pouring off him. DaSilva mopped his brow.

The Irishman’s mood changed and he chuckled. “Ah, Mr. DaSilva, ’tis a hard man you are. Might you not someday learn to leave your city finery at home when you come to God’s own woods?”

“Someday it may be that I will,” DaSilva agreed. “But right now our hosts are waiting.”

Shea turned to the Mohawks and began negotiating.

DaSilva stood where he was, using the rifle for support, blessing the man who’d had the brilliant idea of grooving the long barrel so that unlike a musket it could be aimed with accuracy. The redcoats, with their long lines of foot soldiers shooting repeated volleys of musket fire over each other’s heads, were invincible in a pitched battle but virtually useless here in the colonial woods. Give the savages weapons as accurate as these and they’d do what came naturally to them: hide in the trees and pick off the officers at will. A new day was surely about to dawn, with or without him. And since he had at great cost acquired copies of the London patterns, and located craftsmen in Connecticut and Rhode Island prepared to produce the weapons, he’d be a fool not to profit by the opportunity.

V

“I want you to wear these tonight.” It was February in the new year of 1733. Solomon had given Jennet the double strand of matched pearls a few days earlier, for her eighteenth birthday. Now he put them around her neck and fastened the large diamond clasp at the side, where it showed. The stones were cut in the new manner, with fifty-six facets, not the much duller sixteen facets that had prevailed until a few years earlier. “There. You look exquisite.”

Jennet wore a gown of deep blue satin. “The exact color of madame’s eyes,” the mantua-maker said when she draped the bolt of cloth over the girl’s shoulders. That fitting had given only a hint of what the woman, a French Huguenot said to be the finest seamstress in the city, had in mind. Faced with a young woman of astonishing beauty married to a man with a bottomless purse, she had outdone herself.

The bodice of the dress fastened in the back in a clever new manner that made it impossible to see the ties that held it closed. The front was cut low, inset with a tapered gusset of lace that barely veiled the rise of her breasts and ended in a point at her tiny waist. When she stood the skirt swept out, suspended from the wide and stiff wire panniers attached to the satin corset she wore tightly laced beneath the frock.

“Exquisite,” Solomon said again. “I am tempted to ravish you right here and now.”

Jennet no longer blushed when he said such things. Instead she curtsied and managed to look both demure and just the slightest bit wanton. “I am your obedient servant, husband. You may do with me as you wish.”

“Oh, I shall,” he promised, “but later.” He lifted a dark blue velvet shawl embroidered with silver threads and draped it over her shoulders. “Come, we cannot be late.”

“And you still won’t tell me where we are going?”

“Not yet. You must trust me.”

“I do, Solomon.” She spoke with more seriousness than their banter warranted. “Absolutely completely.”

DaSilva put his hand under her chin and drew her face forward for a gentle kiss. “I know. That gives me enormous satisfaction, my dearest Jennet. In a little while you shall perhaps understand how much.”

The carriage moved beyond the lantern-lit streets of the center of the town. It was not yet six in the evening, but the early winter dark was upon them. Clemence drove the matched white horses out of the heart of populated New York, west to the rolling, uninhabited meadows that spread from the Broad Way to the shoreline of Hudson’s River. It had snowed a few days before, and the way was cleared only enough for two rigs to pass each other, a straight and shining path bathed in the light of a crescent moon and passing between pristine fields of white.