Two #2
Nathaniel snickered. “He considers it leadership.”
Caleb huffed a laugh. “Most men in red coats do.” He set the plane aside and looked at him. “You got word?”
Nathaniel glanced toward the lane before stepping inside the shed. “Mrs. Tilden heard mention of a ship. A naval officer was at the Pembroke house yesterday evening. Two wagons came through from Brookhaven,” he said in a low voice. “Crates were unloaded, but no one knows where they’re bound.”
Caleb’s eyes sharpened. “Brookhaven?”
Nathaniel shrugged. “So she said.”
Caleb scratched his head. “That’s not nothing.”
“No,” Nathaniel agreed.
Caleb moved to the shed’s opening and looked out. “Anything from the house today?” He glanced over his shoulder at Nathaniel with a hopeful look.
Nathaniel took the folded paper Captain Whitby had given him from his coat and held it up. It was sealed and meant for a Loyalist merchant who owed the captain more favors than money. Nathaniel already memorized the direction and mark.
He waved the paper at Caleb. “Nothing I could read without being hanged for it.”
Caleb heaved a sigh. “Then don’t read it.”
“I wasn’t planning on it.” Nathaniel fingered the paper.
Caleb glanced over one shoulder again. “You’ve been doing this too long.”
Nathaniel laughed. “More than two years now. I guess I’m past being tempted because it’s happened so often.”
“And because it can get you killed,” Caleb added and faced him.
Nathaniel leaned against a post. “No, being careless is what will get me killed. Temptation just keeps the work interesting.”
A tiny smile tugged at Caleb’s mouth, but his humor didn’t last. “So we have a ship, wagons, crates, and a naval officer.” He nodded to himself. “That’s enough to move along.”
“It’s also enough to ask questions,” Nathaniel said, “but not enough to answer them. Shouldn’t we get more?”
Before Caleb could answer, a boy of perhaps twelve appeared at the far end of the lane, carrying a bundle of kindling under one arm. Caleb turned away from Nathaniel and picked up the plane again. Nathaniel stepped toward his horse as the boy approached and pretended to adjust the saddle strap.
The boy passed them without glancing their way.
When his footsteps faded, Caleb spoke in a low voice. “Another message came by way of a wash line.”
Nathaniel’s hand stilled on the saddle strap. “From Pembroke House?” Nathaniel asked, his voice just as low.
“No, this was from another. More specific than Mrs. Tilden’s word.”
Nathaniel straightened. “What did it say?”
Caleb picked up a scrap of wood and shaved the edge with his knife. “Ship delayed, wagons delayed, not lost. Cargo important. Officers concerned it may have already been noticed.”
Nathaniel’s mind sharpened at the words cargo important and already noticed. That was no careless dinner conversation. That sounded like something Captain Whitby wanted contained.
“Anything else?” he asked Caleb.
The older man nodded. “Whitby mentioned today’s hanging. Probably as a warning.”
Nathaniel’s jaw tightened. “Most likely, but to whom?”
Caleb put his knife away. “To anyone within hearing.”
Nathaniel looked toward the road. “You know that means the warning was meant for more than the officers in the room.”
Caleb picked up the plane again. “You think someone in the house overheard?”
Anna Turner’s face flashed through Nathaniel’s mind. He remembered how she looked when she peeked around the sheet in the yard. Her face had gone pale. He’d startled her, and she’d been determined not to show it.
“I think Pembroke House has more ears than Whitby realizes.”
Caleb scratched one whiskered cheek a few times. “That could be good.”
“It could also be dangerous,” Nathaniel reminded him.
Caleb put a hand on his shoulder. “Most useful things are, my boy.”
Nathaniel rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.
He knew Caleb was right. Information came at a cost, and every scrap gathered under Captain Whitby’s roof had to pass through human hands.
But every human hand involved could be caught, questioned, or worse.
Anna thought him loyal to the British. Perhaps that was best. Distrust made her cautious.
But if she overheard Whitby and sent the message, then she was already in deeper danger than she knew.
Or… it could be she knew perfectly well.
That possibility unsettled him even more.
Caleb stepped closer, lowering his voice again. “This goes out tonight, Nate. Washington’s people will want to know if British supplies are shifting by water.”
“Yes. But they’ll ask for details I don’t have yet. What am I going to tell them?” Nathaniel looked at the sealed letter in his hand. Whitby’s errand suddenly felt less tedious and far more useful. “The merchant I’m carrying this to may know something.”
“Good. Find out what it is,” Caleb said. The older man studied him a moment. “But be careful, Nate.”
Nathaniel tucked the letter inside his coat. “I’m always careful.”
“No, you’re skilled,” Caleb pointed out. “There’s a difference.”
He couldn’t argue with that and didn’t try. He left the shed, gathered his reins, and mounted. The horse tossed his head, impatient to be moving again. Caleb returned to his work, and anyone looking into the lane would see only a courier leaving a cooper’s yard after some ordinary business.
Nathaniel turned his horse toward town. The ship mattered, but the cargo mattered more. The trouble was, Captain Whitby knew why. And Nathaniel didn’t.
Not yet, anyway.