The Silver Bullet Read online

  “You always had a sharp tongue. Perhaps I should give you a good spanking,” Jake teased.

  “Try it,” she said without humor, adding in French a phrase that translated roughly as, “And if you do, I shall make a puppet of your louie.”

  “You already have.”

  “Fiddle. No woman can tame you. She would be a fool to try.”

  “That’s why I love you.”

  “And what is the reason you’ve come back?”

  “You’re not enough?”

  “I know you, Jake Gibbs. You’d never risk your neck for me.”

  “I’ve risked it for much less.”

  She stepped off the bed and pulled a casual shift from the drawer of her bureau, then went downstairs for something to drink.

  Marie Sacre was the descendant of the earliest settlers of the area. Well known in Montreal, which lay less than five miles to the north, she was considered by half the inhabitants a wild eccentric, a thirty-year-old woman who had never condescended to marry. The other half regarded themselves in constant competition for her charms, striving to break her vows against marriage and win her large estate as their prize.

  Or as an added prize, since her charms were of considerable value themselves.

  Jake had met Marie during the summer of 1775. General Montgomery assigned then-Captain Gibbs to scout Montreal and its environs in preparation for his invasion. After mapping the defenses and delivering his recommendations, Jake returned and entered the city disguised as a local trapper. His new assignment was to recruit Canadians to the Cause, laying the seeds for a local revolt as the Americans approached.

  While his French seemed masterful to American ears, Jake quickly discovered that his accent not only gave him away as a foreigner, but greatly undermined his status with his audience. A squad of redcoats ended his second attempt at rallying support, and he was forced to flee the market area about ten steps ahead of the bayonets. He ran down an alley and met Marie, making a forcible impression by knocking her off her feet. Fortunately, he caught her in midair and whisked her upright with the sweep of a dance master. The soldiers closing in, he bowed and dove behind a pile of boxes in a desperate attempt to hide.

  Something in her expression had told him she would not give him away, but Marie went beyond his best expectations. Jake listened as she assured the soldiers the alley was empty, but a man had just run inside the leather shop across the way. As the soldiers charged off, Marie hurried Jake to her carriage on the street. He threw off his coat and hat, assuming an ad hoc position as her driver; they rode back down through the square he’d been chased from, past the eyes of several of the soldiers who’d done the chasing.

  In the days that followed, Marie helped him clandestinely meet with local opponents to the Crown. The opposition network was one of the reasons – along with the critically weak defenses – that Carleton abandoned the city when Montgomery approached.

  By that time Jake had given himself a new mission, having perpetrated one of his greatest hoaxes. He presented himself to his former employer, Carleton, saying he had fled rebel lines to join him. Completely taken in, the governor once again made him his secretary – a position the young patriot used to great and sundry advantage. Carleton did not begin to suspect him until they had retreated together to Quebec, and even then did not take the proper precautions until Jake had managed to do considerable damage to the British cause. Placed under house arrest, he managed the disguised daylight escape Colonel Flanagan had earlier alluded to – but as those exploits are to be recorded elsewhere, we dwell too much on the past to the expense of the present.

  “I thought you had gone to find Clark and turn me in,” said Jake when Marie returned to the room.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve brought some whiskey. You always liked it.”

  “I still do.”

  She made a face, setting down the flagon in front of him. “French wine is better,” she said before sipping from her own glass of run. “But it has been so long since I’ve had some here. All we seem able to get these days is Portuguese rot.”

  “Your grapes?”

  “Last year’s crop was burned on the vine.”

  “Maybe this year’s?”

  “Yes. It seems more auspicious.”

  She settled into the wooden chair across from him, pulling it forward and hooking her bare feet on the front rungs, her toes tickling the cross spindle. Her easy rock back and forth in the chair seemed gently seductive.

  “Tell me about Burgoyne’s army,” he said.

  “I don’t know much. It’s obvious that an invasion is planned soon. There were rumors of an attempt this past winter, but apparently the lakes were not sufficiently frozen. At least that was the excuse. It was a mild winter, I’ll admit. The snow left in March, but much of the river was still frozen until a few weeks ago. So perhaps they were just scared.

  “How many troops have come to Montreal?”

  “You’re the spy, not me. All I can tell you is that they are as rude as any soldiers I’ve met. A whole troop of the devils were caught last month stealing the hair from cows’ tails; apparently they fix them to their caps as an insignia. There was a huge row over it. Do you remember Pierre Jacques? Well, they were his cows and he took offense. He went after the soldiers – twenty of them, mind you – and speared on with his pitchfork. They brought him up on charges and were going to hang him before I intervened.

  “You?”

  “I went to Carelton himself.

  “How is my friend the governor?”

  She shrugged. Marie had always had a decent opinion of Carleton, and as a large landowner, had stayed on good terms. He did not suspect her connection with Jake.

  There is a large troop at Boucherville,” she continued. “They would be the advance guard of any invasion. I know this because I went with Tom on a visit there.”

  “Tom, is it?”

  “There are rumors of boats being built. Many trees have been taken from the forest.”

  “I saw some of the work on the way here,” said Jake. “The invasion must be planned very soon. Does Tome talk about it?”

  Marie ignored the sarcastic accent her interrogator put on the British captain’s first name. “He’s very careful about what he says, even with me. But everyone knows General Burgoyne will replace the governor, and that he is to attack quickly. Tom is hoping to be transferred to the general’s command once Carleton resigns, which may be any day.”

  In Jake’s view – perhaps prejudiced since he knew Burgoyne only by rumor – Carleton was a much better commander and governor; his resignation was a break for the Americans. But perhaps it had come too late.

  “General Burgoyne is quite a man of learning,” remarked Marie. “They say he writes poetry and plays.”

  “I’ve heard he was a better poet than a general.”

  “If that is so, why did your army retreat to Ticonderoga?”

  Jake had no answer for that. Burgoyne’s reputation in Boston had been that of a dilettante whose major military achievement was staying behind the lines while others took a beating. But the facts were these: He was now in Canada and the Americans were not.

  “Carleton met Burgoyne in Quebec a few days ago,” Marie continued. “The ball Tom mentioned is in honor of the general’s arrival here tomorrow. The governor may be angry, but he keeps to the proper forms.”

  “One thing I always admired about him. I’ll compliment him on it tomorrow night if we meet.”

  “You can’t be serious about going to the ball.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” said Jake. He was indeed serious – it would give him a chance to chat with every field officer in Burgoyne’s army. It would be an easy matter to obtain the invasion plans, at least in outline. With time running out on the Americans, Jake couldn’t afford to spend several days scouting troops or planning a break-in at the British headquarters. He had to get back to Schuyler as quickly as possible – time was even shorter than Flanagan suspected.


  “I’ll have to buy a new suit of clothes and some face plasters. Since your good Captain Clark has already seen me, I don’t want to arouse his suspicions with a different disguise,” said Jake. “Perhaps you can help me pick out something dashing.”

  “But Jake, if Carleton sees you, he will certainly recognize you.”

  “I’ll just have to take care that he doesn’t, won’t I?”

  -Chapter Nine–

  Wherein Jake visits Montreal high society, and has a ball or two.

  For an eighteenth-century man, Jake was rather eccentric about bathing. He tried to take a bath twice a week if possible, and occasionally more, even in the winter. This flew in the face of scientific thought, and was one of the few areas where Jake, who had made a strenuous study of the philosophic arts and endeavored to live by their principles, strayed from the reasoned path. He simply loved to bathe, and despite the weight of the mission head, rose early the next morning and headed out to the stream behind the house to indulge himself.

  Marie’s homemade soap was strong, pricking at his skin. The early spring air was quite cool yet, no more than forty degrees. Still, Jake let himself collapse back on a rock in the middle of a small pool of rushing water, watching as one of Marie’s dogs chased after a pair of ducks by the stream bed.

  His thoughts soon returned to matters of more significance. With the cover story of a physician already established, he could sound out the British soldiers at the ball about joining the expedition. Details of the coming attack would flow from their mouths like the silky water around him.

  As long as they didn’t remember him. Jake knew that the British Army had been greatly reinforced since his last sojourn, and that most of the old guard had been transferred, but there was at least one man guaranteed to know who he was – Carleton.

  Even with his hair freshly curled and as many plasters on his face as fashion allowed, it wouldn’t be easy to fool the governor. But a more complete disguise would mean he couldn’t go as Marie’s cousin. Even if he found another way in, he’d be deprived of Captain Clark’s very useful entrée.

  All in all, his best course was simply to avoid Carleton. It shouldn’t be too difficult if the gathering was large. Undoubtedly the governor would be preoccupied, and besides, the last person he’d expect to see in Montreal again was his long-lost secretary.

  Jake turned his concerns to his rusty dance steps as he walked back up the path to the house, trying to remember whether at beat six or eight that one dipped his knees in the minuet.

  He had settled pretty firmly on six by the time he sat down to breakfast. He was mildly surprised and not a little pleased that the servant girl had cooked a full plate of wheat cakes for him on Marie’s instructions. A pile of dried berries topped the place and some fresh sausage held down the side; it was easily the best breakfast Jake had had in weeks.

  “Perhaps after breakfast, you can give me a shave,” said Jake as the girl returned to the fire.

  “We’ll have the barber do that in town, if you don’t mind,” said Marie, entering the room behind him.

  Jake thought he detected a slight tone of jealousy in her voice. If so, he dispelled it with a slightly more than cousinly kiss on her cheek, then sat back down to work on his cakes.

  “We’ll have to buy you some fresh clothes, if you’re to go to the ball,” said Marie, as she looked over her servant’s work.

  “Good. There’s some business I want to attend to in town,” said Jake.

  Marie’s expression warned him from saying anything more revealing in front of the girl, as if that were really a danger. He finished his meal, and within a half hour had hitched Marie’s horse to her chaise, or cariole, as the French called it.

  Marie’s estate was located only a few miles from the bank of the St. Lawrence directly to the south of Montreal, but to reach a place where they could board a bateau they had to travel in a large circle to the east, passing through three neighbor’s holdings. Each of these had been broken into smaller estates and farms; Marie waved and greeted each person they passed by name.

  Marie did not own a house in the city, but as the journey was somewhat lengthy, she planned to spend the afternoon and change for the ball in the apartments of a friend.

  After she got Jake outfitted, of course. She knew a tailor who could be pressed into quick service for a few extra coins. Jake could make do with his present breeches, but a coat of powder blue – now that would be just the thing to set off his shoulders, wouldn’t it?

  “And you’ll have to get a new hat!” she exclaimed.

  “But I like this hat. It’s been with me since Boston.”

  “Exactly.”

  In the end, he did get a new hat, a large, round beaver with an upturned brim and golden feathers that made him look vaguely Spanish, or so said the tailor. The man muttered considerably at the amount of work he was expected to do to prepare the coat – luckily ordered by a customer who had the bad sense to die the day before he was to pick it up.

  The blue jacket threatened to clash with Jake’s brown breeches, but the addition of a yellow brocaded vest turned the outfit into something quite modern, even racy for the colonies. Two watch chains signified the cutting edge of fashion, with their charms, ribbons and baubles hanging off and making a pleasing clang when Jake walked. The fact that their ends were fastened to pieces of metal instead of watches were besides the point.

  If there was a woman in Montreal who could have resisted his charms when he arrived, she would be positively swooning now. A bit of lilac water, a good deal of scalding to his hair, which was then powdered and tied in a correct black bow beneath his hat – London itself would have fallen at the feet of this young swain.

  Which Jake supposed, was a good enough cover for a spy. For who would suspect the man who stood out from the crowd and called attention to himself instead of lurking in the shadows? “Do I look like Jake Gibbs, the rebel provocateur?” he would say to anyone confronting him. “Well sir, I am not, though from what I have heard of the dog, I would be glad to meet him face-to-face, so that I could challenge him on the field of honor for insulting the king. Rumor has it he hung a rosary of potatoes around the king’s effigy, and I would very much like to avenge that dishonor.”

  Hopefully, brave words would be enough. For Jake had come to town unarmed, except for his pocket pistol – a larger weapon would have drawn too much attention, most especially at the ball.

  Jake tested his self-assurance as well as his disguise by striding through the Montreal marketplace not far from the wharf. The square teemed with soldiers, but they did not seem to pay him much mind; to them he was one more useless dandy.

  Had they followed him, they might have changed their opinions. After making his parade – and adding several more plasters to his face to shore up his disguise – Jake walked to the printing shop of Fleury Mesplet. This was the same Mesplet who had come to Montreal with the Americans during the winter of 1775. A protégé of Franklin, he had stayed after his countrymen had fled. Though he had not completely given up his allegiances, he was not, strictly speaking, an American spy.

  Nor was he particularly happy to see Jake, whom he had known as a boy growing up in Philadelphia.

  “Not much of a disguise, then?”

  “If you’re trying to look like a man of fashion,” said the printer, himself very much the opposite, “you quite succeeded. But your chin gives you away. Everyone in town will know it’s you. You’re notorious.”

  “My chin’s too square?” Jake playfully took it in his hand and tried to see its reflection in the window. The window not being of glass, he was unsuccessful. “Perhaps another strategically-placed plaster.”

  “Leave by the back door,” said Mesplet. “I don’t want anyone to know you’re here.”

  “Now, now, relax, Fleury. Dr. Franklin send his regards.”

  Not even this piece of flatter – invented for the occasion – could clam Mesplet, who took the unusual expedient of removing his sign from
the front of the small, wooden building and then barring his door, as if he’d gone home for the day.

  “You’re worried about nothing,” said Jake. “Neither the barber nor the tailor made the slightest peep, and I stayed with them for two hours. Then I went to the market, showing my face at every booth. I could have lunched with a troop of soldiers without worrying. I was only here for a few weeks – no one even remembers me. It’s Quebec where I have to watch out.”

  “You won’t be so smug when Carleton meets you.”

  “Do you think these plasters are too obvious? They itch, and I’d rather do without them, frankly.”

  “Jake, what do you want? Half the town already suspects me of being a rebel.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “I can’t help you.”

  “I don’t want help,” said Jake, picking up one of the handbills Mesplet had been working on and reading it. “ ‘Fire-arms made to your specification.’ Not bad. But you don’t need this dash her in firearms; it’s one word.”

  “What is it you want?”

  “When is Burgoyne starting his invasion?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

  “Fleury.” There was ever the slightest hint of physical injury in Jake’s voice.

  “Honestly, I don’t,” protested the printer, practically screaming. “Do you think they would tell me?”

  “They haven’t had you print amnesty proclamations or anything like that?”

  “Would they trust that to someone they suspect of being a rebel?”

  “Why did Carleton let you stay in Montreal?”

  They put me in jail after Arnold fled. I was in Quebec for many months.”

  Jake, unsure whether or not that was true, nodded solemnly anyway, as if in apology.

  “You should see Du Calvet,” said Mesplet. He uttered the name so low Jake could barely hear it.

  “So my old friend is still here then?”

  Mesplet nodded. “He knows everything.”

  If the printer had been alarmed by Jake’s visit, Du Calvet was infuriated. The risks involved in his coming north were incalculable, Du Calvet said; he endangered not merely himself, but many others in the city. For the tide had turned here, due in no small part to the poor behavior of the American occupation force in the winter of 1775-76; the French were now at best neutral toward the rebels.