Letters Home: Assassins

by: Shadow Chaser

Part 4

Morning came in the form of the loud chirp of a bird, followed by the annoying knocking sound of a woodpecker hunting for bugs. Ben opened his eyes to find something warm pillowed against his legs and pushed himself up a little to see that Sarah had fallen asleep near the foot of the bed, her hands and arms folded near the edges of the bed, her head pillowed across them. It looked like she had knelt on the ground and fell asleep, her Pennsylvania rifle on the floor in front of her.

Ben grimaced a little as he pushed himself up, his eyes feeling scratchy as he wiped his face and found his hands covered in the drenching sweat that indicated he had broken the mild fever that had gripped him after dinner last night. His body felt oddly light, but he knew that it was due to the fever breaking. He needed a quick wash and grimaced a little as he pushed himself further up, hoping to not wake Sarah.

However, she must have been sleeping lightly as he saw her suddenly start a little lifting her head up, and look around. He saw her eyes widen in surprise at the sight of him sitting up before she smiled and he returned it.

"Your fever-"

Ben shook his head as she reached out to touch him and she frowned before noting the sheen on his face and the dampness of his shirt. The cold air in the room chilled the dampness he was feeling and he could feel his skin pucker a little.

"Goodness, you've certainly broken it," she smiled a little before pushing herself up from the floor and wiping her hands on her the front of her apron, "here, let me go find another clean shirt and get the fire going some more."

"You have a well?" he asked, hoping for some water to clean himself off with and she nodded.

"In the back, a little to the side of the outhouse," she said as she went over to the fireplace and started to tend it.

Ben pushed the rest of the blankets and quilt covering him, as he gingerly swung his legs to the ground, breathing through his mouth at the still sharp-shooting pain he felt from his wound. The dampness of last night was gone and Ben realized that Sarah had changed his bandages when he had slept.

"I grew up with two older brothers and had a husband," Sarah suddenly said from where she was and Ben looked up to see her with a slight smile on her face.

He blushed, feeling the heat rise up in him at the sudden lapse of embarrassment. He still felt that it was perhaps improper of her to have changed his clothes and even dress him, but tried to push the impropriety aside, he would not have survived the night if it was not for her ministrations. "Thank you," he said as he carefully stood up and found that though his legs felt weak, they supported him better than they had last night.

He glanced at her through his lowered head and saw that she was back tending to the fire, expertly pushing a few of the old embers aside and adding some more kindling. Seeing that she was occupied, he took a few tentative steps towards the direction of the door and found that even though his strength had waned considerably, he was a lot stronger than the night before. Opening the door, he stepped out, hugging his arms to himself at the sudden early-winter gust that had kicked up. He could see frost dotting the ground, whatever rain that had fallen in the past few days icing over and knew that the well would be filled with extremely cold water.

He made his way around the back of the house and saw both the outhouse and the small well that halfway to the outhouse. The evergreen bushes and trees that dotted the area gave at least some leaf cover from the path that passed by the front of the house, but most of the trees were already shedding their late brown-colored leaves. Ben reached the well and was about to pull the rope up when he heard the distant snort of what sounded like a horse and paused, every single one of his instincts going on alert. It looked like it something was coming down the road.

He thought fast as he looked around and walked as quickly as he could to where the outhouse was, hiding behind it. He grimaced at the smell that wafted across his senses, nearly making him gag. He forced himself to ignore it as he peered out to see three people riding down the road, two of them unrecognizable, the other – Gamble. Ben cursed silently in his head as he turned back and gritted his teeth. Of all of the people to have found him and even now. Ben's mind raced as he tried to figure out a way of leading Gamble off of his trail. There was no doubt in his mind that Sarah would mention him as just a simple Reverend that she was caring for, and while she would not know who he really was, he had no doubts that Gamble would know that it was him.

He also did not want Sarah to come to any harm from her ignorance and knew that Gamble would be a man who would torture women or hurt them just to both hurt him and to hunt him down. He had ruthlessly slit Nathaniel Sackett's throat, set up an innocent Continental for the fall; who was to say that he would not hurt Sarah even though she was a Tory. Gamble was a British soldier and he knew that the British only tolerated the Tories as both sources of information and were quick to blame them as Continental sympathizers even though they proclaimed their allegiance to the Crown.

He quickly glanced out again and saw the three approach the cottage as he glanced around him to see if there was anything he could do to draw them off. He spotted a rock and reached down to pick it up. Ben bit back a sudden cry of pain at his own foolish movement before he straightened and hefted the rock. He could hear them dismounting and threw the small rock as hard as possible, a grunt issuing from his lips.

Ben could hear Gamble's voice going on alert, but could not hear what was said before he pushed himself as best as he could against the wall of the outhouse as one of the other men rushed by, musket held in his hand. He could see the man avoid some of the larger branches that littered the ground and realized that he was a hunter of sorts – more than likely not quite a good one, but one who knew the woods a little better than the British soldiers. It stood to reason that the other man Gamble had with him was probably also another local hunter.

He glanced back to see Gamble and the other man had disappeared and grimaced. He had to draw them away from Sarah. Ben shook his head as he realized could almost hear Achilles' admonishment along with his own father's voice in his mind to not do something so foolish. Sarah was an innocent and the first tenet of the Creed was to stay the blade from the flesh of an innocent. He was certainly not going to let some common assassin who did not serve either the Brotherhood or Order hurt Sarah.

Ben put a hand on his wound, hoping that he did not rip his stitching as he pushed himself off the outhouse wall. He ran down the hill, the opposite direction of where he had thrown the rock. The reaction was immediate as he heard a shout to his left and knew he had been spotted by the one who had been sent to see what the noise was. Ben ducked at the sudden sound of a rifle discharging, the musket ball splitting wood close to where he ran and pushed forward.

He could not keep the grimace off of his face as his wound protested his movements, but Ben could hear another voice join them and knew that his actions had at least drawn two of the men away. Whether one of them was Gamble or not, he could not tell by the crunch of leaves and branches he was kicking up, but he knew that if he circled back, he could hopefully at least deal with one man instead of all three. The only question was how was he to make it so that he lost the two on him and double back without being seen?