He was on his way out. The sound known as the death rattle was already in his throat as Nat knelt over him.
“Po-powder horn,” the man gasped.
“What?”
“Take the—the powder horn. Don—don’t let anybody get it. Promise.”
What he was talking about Nat had no idea. But it was obvious that the man was dying, and so he said: “All right. I promise.”
He felt the man’s body in the dark. His clothes had the tactile quality of deerskin. On the man’s left hip Nat found a powder horn.
“Mister, who did this to you? Who was the man with the stutter?”
“To-tor——”
“Tory? Was he a Tory?”
But the man had nothing more to say.
Nat stood up with the horn in his hand. Slowly, reflectively—a little awed by the near proximity of death, actually—he wound the rawhide thong around the horn and shoved it into his jacket pocket. There was nothing more he could do there in the alley. It was time to go.
The whistle went ta-weee on Tremont Street, and Nat started to run toward the opposite exit—right smack into a huge, black, up-springing apparition that seemed to loom over and around him like the stern of a Concord coach. He grunted “Uuh!” as they collided and rebounded: but not far. The monster caught his right arm in a viselike grip, and Nat opened his mouth to yell—too late.
A hamsized hand slapped around his mouth, and Nat watched a burly head topped with a cocked hat lean down to him and saw two small porcine eyes peering at him with dangerous intensity.
“Brother,” the big man whispered like the rasp of a file, “all I want from you is one word. Are you Tory or are you a patriot? Now when I remove my hand, don’t you go to yell. Because even though my mitt is somewhat big I’ll ram it inside your mouth and pluck out your tongue like I was takin’ feathers offn a fry chicken.”
Nat was ready to believe the big man could do it. He felt the hand step off his face, and he treated himself to a fresh breath of air.
“Well, I’m an American,” he said warily.
The big man nodded his head and gave Nat a pat on the shoulder that felt uncomfortably like a near dislocation.
“That suits me. Listen, I’m Shad Holly and I’m from Pennsylvany and I’m in a lee-tle bit of trouble with them lobsterbacks.”
“You mean you were in the riot tonight, and now the regulars are after you.”
“Did I say that, brother?” Shad Holly demanded angrily. “Do I look riotous to you? No, I weren’t in no riot. I was just takin’ my evening stroll down Orange Street when a batch a rily fellas went to belaborin’ each other with sticks and stones and I don’t know whatall, and me just standin’ there watchin’ the show, when all at once this here fat-mouth lobsterback captain comes chargin’ around the corner and starts callin’ me all sorts of blue names.”
Shad Holly blew out his breath gustily.
“Now I don’t mind being called a rebel or even a Boston mobster, but when he went to call me fat—well, he went one word too far.”
In spite of his anxiety, Nat found himself fascinated by Shad Holly’s bombastic manner. “What did you do?” he asked.
“Do! What did I do? Well, what would you’ve done? I couldn’t have that fool standin’ there talkin’ that way with mebbe some ladyfolks hearing him from their windows. So I reached out my hand to close his mouth—sort a like I just done to you. But I was so excited I got confused, see? And I somehow forgot to open my hand. Anyhow, he lost two, mebbe three front teeth because of my mistake.
“Say, you ever see a lobsterback captain that’s lost a few buck teeth? My goodness, how he carried on! He didn’t even wait to pick hisself up off the street afore he’s yellin’ and slobberin’ and spittin’ all over hisself for his men to put holes in me. I tell you, the only thing that saved me from lookin’ like a porkypine growing baynets was that his men couldn’t quite get the hang of his slobbery words right off, him not used to havin’ no front teeth to bank his tongue offn.
“I was going to tell him that there warn’t no sense in him kickin’ up such a fuss over just a few buck teeth, ’cause I know this fella Washington, and he has some real dandy whalebone teeth and can talk just as good as you or me. But no, this here lobsterback won’t let me get a word in for all the watery noise he’s making. So I lit out.”
Which was what the two of them had better do right about then, Nat figured. “Come with me,” he said. “I’ve a place you can hide till morning.”
But just then Shad Holly discovered the dead man.
“S-a-y, I don’t want to appear nosy, boy, but you mind tellin’ me just who it is we’re standing on top of?”
“Another fella put a knife in him. I’ll tell you about it later. Let’s get out of here.”
“Brother,” Shad said hoarsely, “the next time I don’t know I’m standin’ over a dead man for ten minutes yammerin’ my big mouth, you just hit me over the head with something handy will you? C’mon, let’s make fast tracks!”
2
“WHAT NEWS?” CRIED ROBIN
The last alley brought them to the stage entrance of Benny Frazer’s theater. The door safely closed behind them, Shad blew out his breath and said: “I don’t know as how I think too highly of actors, by and large, but I’d certainly rather be here than in Boston’s Stone Jail!”
In the lanternlight Nat was able to examine the complete Shad Holly, and there seemed to be no end of him to examine. First off, he was probably the biggest man in America (Nat thought so, anyhow). He was six-four at least, not counting his boots and hat, and he had to weigh over 260. He was maybe fortyish, and his face was perfectly round and sunset pink and aglow with sweat. His eyes were small, angry, curious, lively eyes, and all in all he looked like a mighty rampant man.
He removed his hat, which anyone could see at a glance had once belonged to a British officer, and wiped at his brow with a great bandana that looked like a soiled French battle flag.
“That’s a fine hat,” Nat said. “How’d you come by it?” Shad seemed a trifle vague about the acquisition of the hat. As best as he could remember he’d stopped at a tavern in Providence on his trip north and there had been a batch of British officers in there raising the old Nick, and when they somehow or other got the impression that Shad was a Loyalist, they filled him up with free ale, and when he left the tavern he went to the table where he’d parked his coonskin cap among all the officers’ hats and—his wits being a mite befuddled—he must have picked up the wrong hat by mistake.
“I often wonder what that major looks like in his dress uniform with my coonskin cap on his head,” Shad mused, brushing at the silver lacework on the cocked hat.
He was, he told Nat, in the Pennsylvania militia, and the Committee of Communications had sent him up to Boston in February with some vital information for the Boston Committee of Safety.
“How is it you’re still here?” Nat wondered. “I thought they sent you fellas back and forth.”
“Why, any fool knows trouble is comin’ atween the British and the Americans. And most of us knows that when it does come it’ll be started by these here Yankees. And, boy, I aim to be right here handy when it happens!”
Old Elijah Simp, the gnarled, bent-nearly-double property man, came hurriedly