Solemn Vows Read online

  Marc was soon soaked with sweat, which he attributed entirely to the heat of the overhead sun. Surely Rumsey would not stump boldly into his cabin, even if he felt there had been as yet no general alarm raised against him: his instincts would lead him to scout the near environs first, and only then would he slip safely home. At this very moment Rumsey could be on the prowl nearby—quiet as a cat, deadly as a rattler. Every four or five steps now, Marc stopped, stood still, and listened intently, while making certain there was always a thick tree trunk between him and what he took to be the path to the cabin. His progress was much slower and more erratic than he had intended, and for a moment he was certain he was lost. While he had been inching his way southwards, he might well have passed by the cabin to the left or the right. He stopped walking and leaned against a birch tree. He was dizzy. He couldn’t keep the sweat from stinging his eyes and blurring his vision. His bladder throbbed with the residue of the ale he had drunk at the Crooked Anchor. There was no sound anywhere except his own laboured breathing.

  Then he saw it: a mere thread of smoke curling up into the humid haze and lolling there just above the treeline to his right. The cabin could be no more than thirty yards away. He was still trying to decide whether to sneak up on it or simply march through the front door and trust that the sight of a uniform and a primed musket would do the rest when he heard a shout and then a cry. Running low and as swiftly as he could, Marc made directly for the source of those very human sounds. One had been uttered in rage, the other in distress. And they were now being repeated, louder and more terrible.

  The cabin came up so quickly before him that Marc almost ran right into it. He found himself at the windowless wall opposite the entrance on the west side. He sped along the north wall and swung around into the clearing in front of the cabin. Rumsey was already in full flight towards an opening in the woods to the south—the path he no doubt used to get him to the Tinker’s Dam. Marc raised his gun, caught the blue blur of Rumsey’s overalls in his sight, and fired. Rumsey stumbled at the abrupt blast of sound, twisted briefly in Marc’s direction, started to raise his own gun, then whirled and fled.

  Marc cursed and began reloading. He knew it was hopeless to pursue Rumsey on his own terrain, a tactic more likely to prove fatal to the hunter than the hunted. But then he realized that Rumsey could have stood there at the edge of the woods and dropped the meddling soldier like a fawn frozen in fear. Rumsey must have assumed that the soldier was not alone, for they rarely were (few being as foolhardy as this one, Marc thought). So, he was more likely to flee than to counterattack. All Marc had to do, then, was follow after him as noisily and clumsily as he could—calling out as if to comrades and perhaps even firing off a shot or two for dramatic effect. If Rumsey continued south, Willoughby or Hilliard would be able to intercept him at the Tinker’s Dam or at the city docks, his most probable destination, where Cobb was sure to be waiting with a squad of deputized constables.

  Marc never got to put his plan into action.

  “My God, somebody help me! Please!”

  It was Margaret Rumsey, calling out from inside the cabin. Marc put his gun down and rushed in.

  MARGARET RUMSEY LAY where she had fallen under her husband’s savage blows—on the dirt floor next to a rickety bedstead. One side of her face was already beginning to swell, and her lower lip was split open and bleeding profusely. Her right arm hung limply at her side, bruised or broken. She had apparently used it to ward off Rumsey’s fists. Her pathetic grey shift was torn down the front, and when Marc came up to her in the smoky light, she clutched its shreds together to cover her breasts.

  “It’s all right, Mrs. Rumsey. I’m Lieutenant Edwards. I was here last week. I’m here to help you. Don’t be alarmed.”

  The terror in Margaret Rumsey’s eyes began to fade, though the tears—now able to flow—made it difficult to determine what other emotions might lay there. She was trying to speak through blooded spittle: “Elmer … Elmer.”

  “Your boy?”

  She nodded, then groaned and closed her eyes.

  Marc looked around for the children. Up in the loft at the east end of the big room, he saw the whites of a pair of eyes. “It’s all right, Elmer. You can come down now.”

  Slowly, a boy of ten or eleven descended the ladder and stood, unmoving—traumatized either by the violence he had witnessed or his mother’s sobbing. Marc went over to him. “You must try to be brave, Elmer. Run quickly to Mr. Kimble’s shop and bring Mr. and Mrs. Kimble back here right away.”

  The boy simply stood and trembled.

  “Your father has gone off into the woods. He won’t come back.”

  The boy began to shake his head, but whether yes or no, Marc could not tell. “It’s all right. I’m a soldier. I’ve got a sabre and a gun. Nobody will hurt you or your mother. But your mama needs help. Now go!”

  At this curt command, Elmer Rumsey dashed out the door. He did not look at his mother.

  Marc found several cloths and a pail of ice-cold well water and began daubing at Margaret’s cuts and welts. Gently he raised her right arm and rotated it. She winced but did not cry out.

  “Good,” he said, “it’s not broken. Now hold this cold cloth against that swelling on your cheek. He may have cracked it, but we’ll wait for the doctor’s opinion on that.”

  Despite the pain it caused, Margaret shook her head vigorously.

  “It’s all right. I’ll pay the doctor. You’ve suffered enough.”

  She began to weep, though the sobbing had stopped, and Marc sensed that these were not tears of pain now but of a deeper anguish no physician could touch. Marc managed to create a soft place for her to lie down by arranging every threadbare blanket he could find to form a sort of nest on the bedstead. He lifted her up and placed her down upon it, covering her nakedness with a grimy sheet.

  “Are the other children safe?”

  “Yes,” she said huskily. “At Mrs. Kimble’s.”

  “Mrs. Kimble will be here in a minute. Then I’ll arrange for the doctor to come. Now, can you tell me what happened?”

  Margaret pushed herself up onto her good elbow. Her eyes widened, as if her mind had unexpectedly cleared and she had remembered things she must say, pain or no pain. “He went crazy. He was out of his mind. He never hit me before, never. But he was so angry, so angry. ‘I killed a man fer nothin’,’ he kept yellin’ and screamin’, and I couldn’t stop him. ‘I killed a man fer ten dollars,’ was all he said.”

  “Did Philo shoot Councillor Moncreiff in the square last week?” Marc asked.

  “That man told him he’d make us rich. Philo said he could earn us fifty dollars, we could move back to Buffalo, buy us a house, and I said, ‘But how can you get fifty dollars?’ and Philo said, ‘You’ll see,’ and when that old feller got shot out there and Philo sneaks in here the next day with his mama just dead and then sneaks out again and tells me to say he’s still in Buffalo, then I knew how he was gonna get us fifty dollars.”

  “Then why was he so angry, Mrs. Rumsey?”

  “He was screamin’ like a wild man that the rich fella paid him ten dollars at first, but then wouldn’t give him the rest of it.”

  “Did Philo know who this man was?”

  “Fella with a big black beard, Philo said. Someone pretendin’ to be what he wasn’t. But Philo found out who he was, and he said he was gonna get his money, one way or t’other. But he was so angry, so angry. He was writin’ the fella a letter. ‘This’ll make the bugger pay,’ he yelled, but I kept tryin’ to get him just to up and leave now fer Buffalo, and be satisfied with ten dollars, and he goes all purple in the face and his eyes bulge out somethin’ terrible, and I’m real scared, and he up and hits me, and when I get up he hits me again and again, and all the time he’s yellin’, ‘I’m gonna take my gun and get my forty dollars, you hear!’ Then he throws the letter into the fire and runs out, and I hear a gun go off, and I don’t know what’s happenin’.”

  Marc eased her back down
just as the door opened and Mrs. Kimble came bustling in. She had a basket of salves, bandages, and a towel full of ice. “There, there, luv, it’s gonna be okay.”

  Marc moved away to let her minister to Margaret Rumsey. As he did so he noticed for the first time the fire smouldering in the grate of the big stone fireplace. He crouched down and with a thumb and forefinger lifted free a crumpled sheet of paper. It was singed around the edges, and smudged with soot and ash. Marc blew off as much of this as he could, then unfolded it and walked out into the sunlight to read what Philo Rumsey had been writing by way of threat to the man who had instigated the murder of Langdon Moncreiff.

  This is what remained for him to read:

  tried to carrie out my part of the

  pay me in full fer doin yore

  not my fallt Guv Head dropt hi

  or I’ll go to the magistra

  Marc was deeply disappointed that the person being threatened was not named, but the substance of the rest of the letter was stark enough. Rumsey had been given an initial payment of ten dollars, with another forty promised, no doubt, when the deed was done. But Rumsey had shot the wrong man! Sir Francis—as Marc had relived the action every night in his dreams—had bent down to pick up the notes for his speech, and the bullet had missed him and struck Moncreiff. In the letter Rumsey was pleading that it was not his fault that Sir Francis had bent down without warning, and was demanding full payment or else he would go to the magistrates. That seemed a hollow threat, however, and Rumsey must have realized it as he wrote it, and decided in a rage to take more direct action. Perhaps they would be lucky enough to trail him to the doorstep of the real villain of this affair. Besides confirming Rumsey’s guilt, the note explained also why he had been hanging about York County since the shooting instead of seeking asylum in Buffalo: he wanted his forty dollars.

  Most important, in Marc’s view, was the confirmation of his initial hunch that Sir Francis had been the assassin’s target. The unthinkable had almost happened. And Marc himself must bear the grim news to the governor as soon as possible. Head’s life might hang in the balance.

  Marc picked up his musket and poked his head into the cabin. “I have urgent business with the governor,” he said to Mrs. Kimble, still at Margaret’s side. “I must leave.”

  “Everythin’ll be okay here. Mr. Kimble’ll see to it.”

  “Have him bring a doctor. I’ll take care of the fee.”

  Margaret Rumsey sat up, stared hard at Marc, and cried, “You won’t hurt him, will you?”

  WHEN MARC FINALLY FOUND HIS WAY back to the spot where he had tethered the mare, he discovered only a pile of fly- ridden horse- dung. The branch to which she had been tied was not broken, so it appeared someone had stolen her. Philo? No, he had headed south, where his only chance of escape or revenge lay. But it was still possible that Philo had an accomplice. Possible also that Cobb’s assessment of Phineas Kimble had been premature. Sarah-Mae Kimble seemed a genuinely kind person, and she had readily admitted hearing the shot that had killed Moncreiff. But her husband had not. Moreover, he had given Philo occasional work long after he had had to fire him for the good of his business. Why? Did he, like his wife, feel sorry for the Rumsey children? Or was there a darker ulterior motive?

  These thoughts occupied Marc as he crashed through the bush back towards the square and the livery stables. There he would commandeer the best horse in the name of the king, and ride on to Government House. Sir Francis must be shown Rumsey’s letter and told the unsettling truth. By the time Marc managed to find the trail and make his way to Danby’s, he estimated he had lost close to an hour since the initial encounter with Rumsey. In a state of near- panic he stumbled into the livery stables and gasped out his royal command.

  The proprietor—a sandy- haired old gent—gave Marc a gap- toothed grin, spat out a gob of tobacco juice, and said, “Well, now, I could do that, sir, but I don’t reckon that’ll be necessary.”

  “I am on the governor’s business, sir.”

  “I don’t doubt you on that score. But yer own mare is restin’ comfortable in one o’ my stalls. I corralled her on the road after some fool run her ragged an’ just left her to catch her death in her own sweat. I figured you’d want to ride her back to town.”

  IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON, with shadows lengthening across the streets, when Marc at last rode up to Government House with the scrap of Rumsey’s alarming letter in his pocket. He expected to find the place alive with bustling troops and excited clerks, but only the duty-corporal greeted him in the hall and, with no especial concern, ushered him into the governor’s office. There he found not only Sir Francis but also Willoughby, Hilliard, and Titus Burns. They were in the midst of a toast, and it looked as if it were not the first.

  “Come in, come in,” Sir Francis beamed, all smiles. Willoughby and Hilliard looked like a pair of cats who had just shared a canary. “We were beginning to worry about you, Lieutenant. In fact, I sent Parker and a unit up to Danby’s to make sure Rumsey hadn’t shot you before we got him.”

  “You got him?”

  “Not I. It is Willoughby and Hilliard here who deserve the credit.”

  “But it had to have been Lieutenant Edwards who flushed the blackguard out and sent him scuttling our way,” Colin said generously.

  “You did encounter him, then?” Sir Francis asked Marc.

  Marc was still trying to take in what was happening here. He had news that surely superseded anything else, but his instincts told him that it was Sir Francis alone who should hear it. “Yes, sir. I took a shot at him near his cabin, and he was fleeing south. I got down here as fast as I could to raise the alarm.”

  “Then once again you have done me and the province a great service,” Sir Francis said, choosing to ignore the obvious question as to why it had taken Marc almost two hours to make a forty- minute journey.

  “Has Rumsey confessed?” Marc asked.

  “No, he hasn’t,” Hilliard said with a curious grin on his face, somewhere between a smug and a smirk.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter,” Marc said to Sir Francis. “I’ve got proof that he did it.”

  “We won’t need it,” Hilliard said.

  “He’s dead,” Colin said.

  “Dead?”

  “Yes, Lieutenant,” Sir Francis said. “That’s what we’ve been toasting: the just outcome of a heinous crime. Hilliard and Willoughby were led to a pier near Turner’s brewery by Constable Cobb. They and their platoon hid in the long grass down there and simply waited. About an hour ago, Rumsey arrived and, thinking himself unobserved, started to make his way towards an old fishing boat tied up at the dock. When challenged by Hilliard here, Rumsey turned and fired, wounding an infantryman in the leg. A moment later, the villain went down in a hail of bullets.”

  “And good riddance,” Hilliard said.

  “The rifle that killed poor Moncreiff was found in his hand,” Sir Francis said.

  “And that’s the end of it,” Colin said.

  “But now you’ll never know who hired him,” Marc said.

  “But we don’t know for sure that anybody did,” Hilliard said.

  “I agree,” Sir Francis said. “As far as I am concerned, the whole sorry business is over. We have an election to deal with, and the fact that the killer turned out to be a malcontent Yankee will certainly not work against us. And now we have the extra fillip of having brought him to justice—swiftly and remorselessly.”

  “And we have a gala tomorrow night to spread the good news and celebrate,” Hilliard said.

  Marc held his peace.

  IT WAS EARLY EVENING before Marc was given his private audience with the governor. The parade of well- wishers traipsing in to congratulate him on his triumph in the London district and upon the quick and tidy resolution to the “Moncreiff business” not only prevented Marc from seeing the governor alone but made the revelation he had to make all the more distressing.

  Marc began by saying, “Sir, I wanted most urgently to see
you alone the minute I arrived here from Danby’s Crossing. But it has proved impossible—”

  “Don’t blame yourself, young man. Just get on with what you seem to have an incurable urge to say.” Sir Francis was still in a euphoric mood.

  “I’ll get right to the nub of the matter, then. I have incontrovertible proof that it was not Langdon Moncreiff whom Rumsey was hired to kill.”

  “I thought that missive might be a letter of promotion, as you’ve been squeezing it to death for the past minute.”

  “Rumsey was hired to kill you, sir.”

  “You must be joking,” Sir Francis said, but the twinkle in his eye had already dimmed. “I told you last week that no one would dare assassinate the King’s representative abroad.”

  Briefly, Marc outlined what had happened earlier that afternoon. He repeated Margaret Rumsey’s words verbatim.

  “I see why you are so agitated, Marc. But, even so, we must take a long, objective look at this evidence. I’m sure Mrs. Rumsey had no cause to lie to you about her husband’s claims. After all, they were incriminating, not exculpatory, and a woman in that dreadful state is not likely to be dissembling. However, how can we be sure that Rumsey did not feed her such false information in order to justify his own seditious actions?”

  Marc held out the charred letter. “I found this in the fireplace, where Rumsey tossed it before running off.”

  Sir Francis took the scrap of paper and read it carefully—growing paler by the second. He read it again, and the paper trembled in his grip.

  “You do recall dropping your notes, sir? And Moncreiff was almost directly behind you along the line of fire. I checked these details last week. There can be no doubt that as you bent down suddenly, the bullet meant for you struck Mr. Moncreiff.”

  Sir Francis sat down stiffly in the wingback chair beside his desk. All colour had drained from his face. His eyes were glassy, and for a second Marc was afraid the governor was going to faint. But he drew in a single, gasping breath to bring himself around. Both hands still shook in his lap.