Alex and Eliza: A Love Story(77)
It took ten minutes of pounding before the station clerk opened the door, and another ten minutes before Alex was able to make it clear what he wanted and that he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Ten minutes later he was mounted on a gray Arabian—the fastest horse in the stable, the clerk said.
A three-quarters moon lit the road, which the horse seemed to know quite well. Alex knew the road, too. It was the same route he had traversed almost every day for a week in February, when he was waiting for Eliza to show up. He settled into the saddle and let the horse have his head. He had been awake for nearly eighteen hours at this point, and already logged some thirty miles on horseback that day in the journey from Amboy and had been twice soaked through. He was exhausted, sore, and chilled, but alternating waves of anger and passion drove him on. An hour went by, then another. The moon sank low in the sky, and a hint of light appeared in the east. Not dawn, but its promise.
Alex didn’t remember seeing the horses appear on the road ahead of him. Afterward he realized they must have come from the thick forest that shrouded the west side of the road and were crossing it to get under cover of the trees on the other side, but when he first saw them he had the impression that they had appeared out of thin air.
I must have fallen asleep, he thought.
The riders seemed as surprised by his presence as he was by theirs. They pulled up short, the horses’ noses still pointing west but the riders’ faces all turned south, to stare at him. Then he understood: Their faces were covered by kerchiefs.
Bandits!
He pulled his horse up short, but it was too late. The three riders had spurred their mounts toward him, and before he was able to turn around, they were on him. He had seen their muskets come unslung as they rode toward him and ducked down against his horse’s neck just in time. He heard the crack of a gunshot and the whiz of a musket ball past his ear. A moment later he felt a searing pain in his shoulder and realized the ball must’ve grazed him as it flew by.
The shooter would not be able to reload on horseback, but there were still two others. Alex knew he was an easy mark as long he was mounted, and so threw himself off his horse on its lee side. The Arabian was agitated but stayed in place, even as Alex pulled his musket free. He stepped quickly from behind his horse, aimed at one of the two riders trying to get a bead on him with their muskets and fired. A shower of blood haloed the rider’s masked face, and then he fell from the saddle.
As he fell, though, the man’s greatcoat slipped open, and Alex saw a flash of crimson within.
Redcoats! They must be on a raiding mission from their base on the island of Manhattan. It was incredibly daring of them to come this far. They must have been after some very big prize indeed.
The two remaining riders were on him now. Alex kept his horse between himself and his attackers, especially the one with the drawn gun; as they wheeled around the Arabian, Alex stabbed blindly with the bayonet mounted on his musket’s muzzle. He missed the rider but felt his blade sink into the quivering muscle of the horse’s croup. The animal was more frightened than hurt and reared back on his hind legs, sending its rider sprawling to the ground.
Alex didn’t hesitate. He fell to one knee and drove the bayonet into the exposed red breast of the second raider. The rider had dropped his musket. Alex wasn’t sure whether it was loaded or not, but he threw his own musket aside and grabbed it anyway. The remaining rider was wheeling around for a final charge, holding his musket front of him like a lance, not planning to fire it.
Alex had the one loaded weapon remaining. He lifted it to his shoulder and took steady aim. The rider bore down on him in a clatter of thundering hooves. Alex waited until he was sure he couldn’t miss, and then fired. The rider flew off the back of his horse as though his head had been caught in a wire. The riderless horse charged on, though, and Alex had to throw himself out of the way. He landed painfully on his wounded shoulder, which tore and throbbed all at the same time.
He forced himself to get up, his fingers scrambling for a weapon. But it was unnecessary. Three prone figures lay on the road, none of them moving. The Arabian had run off, but two of his attackers’ horses remained. Though he was desperate to get on with his private mission, he knew he would be remiss in his duty if he did not at least search the three men who had attacked, since they were clearly spies of some sort. Two of them were devoid of anything other than common implements of war, but the third had a passel of folded papers in his hand, one of which was sealed with wax bearing the stamp of the Contintental army. There were perhaps a dozen officers in the entire army who commanded such an insignia. It wasn’t his purview—and was probably above his station—but he couldn’t stop himself from opening it. “My dear Major André,” he read, followed by a list of American troop movements. But the signature at the end was the most shocking part of it all: “Yours very sincerely, General Benedict Arnold.”
Alex couldn’t believe what he had found. Evidence of treason involving one of the most decorated American heroes. And with John André, no less, that handsome British officer who had nearly swept Eliza off her feet at the same party where Alex met her. He couldn’t believe that he had stumbled across such a momentous discovery, and knew he needed to report it immediately. But other business called him north. Reasoning that André would not be able to act without this intelligence, Alex assumed he had a day or two before he was truly derelict in his duty. And who better to report treason to than another general?