Читать онлайн «The Iroh Chain»
Автор Джим ДеФелис
Jim DeFelice
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
Chapter Forty-eight
Jim DeFelice
The iroh chain
Chapter One
June, 1777
You will honor me, sir, by raising your hands. You need not touch a particular cloud, but you will stretch in that direction or suffer the most dire consequences. "
"And what consequences might those be?" harrumphed Claus van Clynne, settling his hands alongside his baggy russet coat as his gelding took a short, nervous pace to the side.
"I should not like to shoot you. " The man locked his knees astride the gray-dappled horse blocking the path and flicked his coat back to reveal a well-polished flintlock pistol, cocked and aimed in the Dutchman's direction. "I must say, though, you would be an easy target, with so large a belly. "
"Even the robbers take airs these days," complained van Clynne, who still made no movement to comply with the stranger's command.
Jake Gibbs, sitting on a black mare next to him, silently cursed his companion's obstinate nature. On the one hand, van Clynne's prickly sense of honor, not to mention his stubbornness, often proved valuable in difficult situations. On the other, it occasionally led him to annoy people at entirely the wrong moment, with difficult consequences.
"Claus," said Jake, holding his long arms out in a show of complying with the stranger's directions, "perhaps the gentleman wants to discuss the state of affairs in the countryside. " He stretched his hands so high that his shoulders strained the rough gray-brown cloth of his coat.
"At gunpoint? I tell you sir, as a practitioner of the conversational arts, gunpowder makes for very poor grammar. "
Jake smiled apologetically at the stranger, and moved his left hand down to shade against the late afternoon sun. The man had come upon them at the juncture of two narrow and extremely obscure lanes northeast of the old New York road in southern Westchester. Van Clynne's irritation was undoubtedly compounded by the fact that he had boasted a few minutes before that not more than three people in the entire province knew this shortcut to White Plains, and that he and Jake were as likely to meet an African unicorn as a criminal.
The country here was euphemistically known as the Neutral Ground, meaning that in addition to being patrolled by both American and British forces, robbers and thieves felt any traveler was fair game. Which specific category the stranger fell into remained to be seen, but was in certain important senses irrelevant.
