Liberty 1784: The Second War for Independence by Robert Conroy Page B

yards of the house, Cousin Francis and the other man stopped and gathered themselves, breathing deeply. He heard them murmuring a plan. They would approach the barn as quietly as they could and surprise what they expected would be a sleeping Will.
    They were so intent on what was ahead of them that they paid no attention to their rear. Will did not think twice about such a thing as fighting fair. He’d been in too much combat to believe that killing someone else before he could kill you was not fair. You did it in order to survive.
    Will approached them and, when he was within a few yards, he fired, shooting the man with the musket in the back. As Francis turned in shock, Will ran up and hit him in the head with the stock of the now empty musket.
    It was over in seconds. He checked the man he’d shot. He was dead with a hole in his back that left a gaping exit wound in his chest. Francis was out cold, and a lump was forming on his skull. Will hoped he hadn’t killed the greedy, treacherous fool, and then wondered why he cared.
    After pushing the dead body well into the field where it couldn’t be seen, he dragged Francis into the house. No one was near enough to have heard the shot, or they simply didn’t care. Winnie began to moan again when she saw her husband’s bloody and unconscious body.
    “You’re not stupid,” Will said to her. “I’m going to loosen your bonds so you can get yourself out of them in a while. If anybody tries to follow me, I’ll kill them just like I did that other Tory bastard outside. Remember that I didn’t kill Francis, even though I could have and with ease. He stole my farm and was going to sell me back to that stinking prison for ten miserly pounds. Your husband is a cruel cheap shit. Even Judas wanted thirty pieces of silver.”
    Francis began whimpering and groaning, so Will tied him up as well. He again turned to Winnie and loosened both her bonds and her gag. When he was satisfied she could get help for herself and dear Cousin Francis, Will searched the house for useful things to take with him. He settled on an ax, a knife, a bullet mold, lead, and powder. They had some bread and dried meat, so he took that as well. He also now had two muskets and a pistol. You could never have too many weapons, he thought. He would never be taken alive.
    As he stepped out into the night, he checked the stars and headed roughly west. It was in that direction that Fort Washington, and whatever Liberty was, were said to be. He only wondered just how far away they were.
    * * *
    Major James Fitzroy thought the city of New York was depressing and squalid. More than thirty thousand people, many of them enthusiastically if belatedly proclaiming their loyalty to King George III and the government of Lord North and General Cornwallis, were jammed into its narrow and winding streets. There were two exceptions to the rule of narrowness, Broad Street and De Heere Street, which was also called the Broad Way. These seemed to be the center of what life existed in New York.
    Much of the town was still in ruins from the fire of 1776, and little had been done to rebuild. That took money, and the country was still in a state of war.
    Fitzroy was puzzled. He wondered why, if the people were so solidly behind the king, were so many of them ignoring him or worse, glaring at him when they thought he wasn’t looking? In the weeks since his arrival, he’d noticed that he got better service in a tavern or a shop when he didn’t wear his uniform. He was beginning to think that the veneer of loyalty in the colonies was very thin indeed.
    He had a small room on the second floor of a pleasant inn on Wall Street, once the site of the city’s walls and now a place where merchants and investors congregated. At least they’d used to when the city was vibrant and alive. It was an easy walk to Fort George, which meant that he didn’t have to live in the cramped officer’s quarters inside the fort. No matter how small and