Kings Pinnacle (31 page)

“Major Ruskin was escorted
into the British Army camp, where he must have had a short
conversation with someone because he didn’t stay long. When he was
finished, he rode out and I followed him down here where you all
must have caught him,” said Clem.

“Clem, I want you to take
the men and ride south. I don’t want them to get caught by the
British if this lasts longer than I think it will. I don’t want
them to witness what is going to happen to this wee rat,” said
Hugh, motioning over his shoulder at Samuel Ruskin.

After Clem left with the men, Hugh
turned to Big Mike and Jonas.

“If Ruskin kills me in this
fight, I want ye two to kill him,” Hugh said to Jonas and Big Mike
in a whisper so that Samuel Ruskin couldn’t hear him.

“It’d be my pleasure,”
replied Big Mike softly as he cocked the flintlock of the pistol in
his belt.

Big Mike and Jonas nodded at
Hugh and then stepped back to give Hugh some room. Jonas pulled out
his rifle from its sheath, primed the pan and cocked his flintlock.
Hugh turned back and walked over to where Samuel Ruskin was
waiting.

“Jonas and Big Mike, stay
out of this. This is between Ruskin and me,” said Hugh, loud enough
for the two men to hear him. Hugh never took his eyes off Samuel
Ruskin while he was speaking. Then he reached down and pulled a
knife from his boot sheath that was made by his father, John
Mackenzie.

The only four men left
standing in the trail were Samuel, Hugh, Big Mike and
Jonas.

* * * *

Alex

“
Robert, you’re a madman.
Are you alright?” asked Alex.

“Alex, I’m fine. I was
looking for you and General Washington at the headquarters, but
they told me you were down here. As I was riding down here, I spied
some redcoat snipers aiming at you and the general from across the
river. I thought if I yelled, you would pause and look up, and that
would alert the British snipers, so I rode as fast as I could to
get you two on the ground. I didn’t hear a shot from the other
side, so I guess I was in time. Besides, I remember that you used
the same maneuver to take down a number of Hessians at the Battle
of Trenton last year to save Hugh and me,” panted the out-of-breath
Robert as he turned to speak to General Washington.

“General Washington, there
is a large British force flanking us from the north. We encountered
them about a mile or so south of Sconneltown. They must have forded
the Brandywine north of where we had men stationed. I suspect that
we have only about an hour or so before they get here,” continued
Robert.

“Thank you for that report.
We had better get going to redeploy our troops to meet this new
attack. Lieutenant Mackenzie, I want you to take your men and ride
north as fast as you can. Delay the British advance with ambushes
just like you did from Maidenhead to Trenton. Now if you two
gentlemen will excuse me, I have a lot of work to do,” said General
Washington.

“Yes, sir,” replied Alex and
Robert in unison.

General Washington mounted
his horse and took off at a gallop toward his headquarters. Alex
turned to look at the smiling Robert with a questioning expression
on his face.

“Do you think you hit anyone
with that wild shot of yours?” asked Robert.

“I don’t know. I was aiming
at a patch of red that looked like a red coat’s sleeve,” replied
Alex.

“I wonder who the general
was referring to when he said you two gentlemen?” asked
Robert.

“Well, it obviously wasn’t
you and me,” replied the smiling Alex.

“Let’s ride,” said Robert as
they mounted up and turned their horses away from the river and the
danger of redcoat snipers. They gathered up the Longhunter and the
men that had ridden south with Alex and rode north to delay the
enemy’s advance on Chadds Ford as much as they could.

* * * *

Samuel

Hugh wasn’t a skillful
knife fighter like Alex or Robert, especially Robert, who was very
deadly with a knife. Hugh was more of a tap room brawler who didn’t
know or understand the subtleties of fighting with a knife. He
tended to wade right in and mix it up without any of the
preliminaries or preambles, such as circling or sizing up one’s
opponent. Hugh depended mainly on his great strength rather than
speed or technique. He fought like a bull rather than a
fox.

“It’s time give yerself a
kiss goodbye,” said Hugh as he faced Samuel, holding his knife at
the ready.

“What are the rules?” asked
Samuel.

“There ain’t gang to be nae
rules,” answered Hugh.

Hugh knew that Samuel Ruskin
would try to buy some time with talk in hopes that General Howe or
at least the leading elements of General Howe’s army would arrive
at the fight and cause the patriots to flee. But Hugh wasn’t about
to let that happen. He started the fight by rushing at Samuel with
a full speed straight-on knife thrust, using a stabbing
motion.

Samuel sidestepped Hugh’s
thrust and countered with a viscous swipe with his knife across
Hugh’s side and back as Hugh went by him. Hugh’s buckskin jacket,
which had been hardened by sweat and rain, prevented the knife
slash from breaking his skin. But the knife left a deep slice in
Hugh’s jacket.

Hugh turned and faced Samuel
for another charge, but Samuel was quicker and lunged at Hugh with
a straight on thrust that was similar to Hugh’s opening move. Hugh
blocked the thrust with his left hand and followed with a slash
aimed at Samuel’s throat.

Samuel leaned back to avoid
the slash at his throat and countered with another swipe at Hugh’s
chest. Hugh followed with another straight on thrust at Samuel.
Samuel blocked the thrust with his left hand and grabbed the wrist
of Hugh’s hand that was holding his knife. Samuel then turned
around and pulled Hugh’s arm over his shoulder. Samuel placed his
own knife between his teeth and grasped Hugh’s arm with both hands.
He then bent down, pulling Hugh’s arm and flipping Hugh over him
and down on the ground on his back.

Hugh was dazed by the flip
and a little stunned from the fall. The technique that Samuel had
used was a classic maneuver that John Mackenzie had taught all of
his sons. He had also taught them how to counter it by grasping
your opponent with your free hand and taking him to the ground with
you. Hugh had obviously forgotten or had never learned that lesson
and was now in trouble.

Samuel reached up and
grasped his knife from his teeth, dropped down to one knee and
stabbed it downward toward Hugh’s throat. Hugh was barely able to
pull his head to the side to avoid the strike. Samuel’s knife went
right past Hugh’s throat into the ground. As the knife sliced
directly into the ground, it struck a large, buried rock. The point
of the knife blade struck the rock with full force, and the impact
caused Samuel’s knife blade to break off at the haft, rendering it
a useless weapon.

Samuel tossed his knife haft
aside and stood up to face Hugh without a knife. Hugh also groggily
got to his feet, still holding his knife and grinning at Samuel
like a wolf. Samuel knew it was over; his eyes darted around and he
had the look of a frightened deer. Hugh unexpectedly turned and
threw his knife over to where Big Mike and Jonas were
standing.

“I wouldn’t want to just
slaughter ye like the rat ye be,” said Hugh.

“That was a mistake, big
man,” said Samuel who reached down and pulled a back-up knife from
a sheath concealed under his shirt. He then lunged at Hugh before
Hugh could walk over and retrieve the knife he had just tossed
aside. Hugh easily dodged the lunge.

Hugh was offended rather
than angered by the underhanded maneuver. His innate sense of fair
play at first couldn’t comprehend the violation of the unspoken
rules. Samuel saw the puzzled look on Hugh’s face.

“There ain’t nae rules in a
knife fight,” said Samuel mocking Hugh and making another
straight-on thrust at the defenseless Hugh.

But Hugh’s mind blanked out
the analysis of the situation, and he turned into a bare-handed,
cold killing machine. He side-stepped the thrust and used Samuel’s
forward momentum and his own great strength to grab Samuel’s arm
and pull him forward. As Samuel stumbled forward, passing by him,
Hugh grasped Samuel from behind and wrapped his arms around
Samuel’s head. With a powerful twisting motion, Hugh turned
Samuel’s head past the point where it could turn naturally and
broke his neck, killing him instantly. Samuel’s dead body relaxed
in Hugh’s grasp and slumped to the ground as Hugh released him.
Hugh dropped his arms to his sides and stared at the lifeless
Samuel while he regained his breath.

Jonas and Big Mike walked up
to Hugh, standing over the dead Samuel Ruskin.

“Let’s get this rat buried
as quickly as possible,” said Hugh.

They dragged Samuel’s body
into the trees just off the road and dug a shallow grave, dumped
Samuel’s body into the hole and hastily covered it in a thin layer
of dirt. Then they scattered leaves and brush over the grave to
conceal it.

“Mount up; let’s ride,” said
Hugh as he mounted his horse and Big Mike and Jonas
followed.

No one except Hugh, Jonas,
and Big Mike would ever know the location of Samuel’s grave. They
were the only three men who even knew that Samuel Ruskin was
dead.

* * * *

Alex

“
We’ve delayed them all we
can. Let’s ride back and join the main force,” said Alex to his
men.

Riding north, Alex, Robert,
the Longhunter, and his men had first met Clem Jackson and his
troops as they south on the River Road to Sconneltown. Alex turned
them around and they all continued north. Then they met Hugh, Jonas
and Big Mike a short time later. They also turned them around to
ride back to the north. Alex’s mission had been to delay General
Howe’s army. They had fought the delaying action from south of
Sconneltown, where they first encountered the British main forces,
all the way to Chadds Ford. But they were not able to slow the
progress of the British Army very much because it was moving down
the road like a giant elephant. When they arrived at Chadds Ford,
General Washington was already making preparations to hold against
two fronts. Howe was coming against his right flank, and
Lieutenant-General Baron Wilhelm von Knyphausen was crossing Chadds
Ford against his main front.

“There are too many of them.
We’re going to have trouble holding them on two fronts,” said
General Washington.

It wasn’t long before Howe’s
army broke through the right flank of General Washington’s troops.
The general was able to redeploy enough men to hold off Howe long
enough for the main body of troops to escape to the northeast. It
wasn’t long until the entire Continental Army was in full retreat.
General Washington gave the order to reassemble in Chester,
Pennsylvania, but the Battle of the Brandywine was lost, leaving
Philadelphia exposed to the British Army invasion.

After winning the battle at
Chadds Ford, General Howe marched his army directly to
Philadelphia, arriving there a few days after the battle. He wasted
no time taking and occupying Philadelphia and making it his winter
quarters. General Washington marched his army to Valley Forge,
Pennsylvania and occupied it as his winter quarters. After they
arrived at Valley Forge, Alex called a meeting with Robert, Hugh,
the Longhunter, Big Mike, and Jonas.

“We are the only ones other
than General Washington and Molly who know the fate of Samuel
Ruskin. We can still use the Prophet to feed the British false
information for a while until they catch on to it, but that’s not
why I called us together. We need to rescue Molly’s sister from
Samuel Ruskin’s men in Philadelphia.”

After the battle at Chadds
Ford, Alex had located Molly in the camp followers’ tent area and
told her about Ruskin’s death. She had responded by collapsing on
her cot in relief and then sobbing out the story of her sister
Maggie, and the threat to Maggie’s safety that Ruskin had held over
her head. They knew that she was sympathetic to their cause. She
hated Samuel Ruskin and desperately wanted to free her sister
Maggie from the clutches of Samuel Ruskin’s men.

“Molly can help us, but
someone is going to have to slip into Philadelphia with her and
save her sister. Who knows the most about Philadelphia?” asked
Alex.

Alex already knew the answer
to his question, but he wanted a volunteer rather than have to
order someone to go there and carry out the mission.

“That would be me,” answered
Big Mike Finn.

“Do you think you could get
in without being caught by the British?” asked Alex.

“Aye, of course I can. It’d
be as easy as a stroll in the clover,” replied Big Mike.

“Okay, here’s the plan,”
said Alex. “Big Mike and Molly will be disguised as a merchant and
his wife. Big Mike will walk into Philadelphia with Molly and go
directly to Ruskin’s men who are running his business for him. Big
Mike will pose as a man who works for Samuel Ruskin here in the
army. Ruskin has sent his man to Philadelphia to collect Maggie
because he needs both women to do his dirty work. Ruskin’s men in
Philadelphia won’t know that Ruskin is dead, so they won’t have any
reason to suspect the ruse. They probably don’t care what happens
to the women anyway.