He watched me, hard-eyed. At each report of the guns from the stone fortress on the opposite hilltop, my muscles fluttered. “No,” I said, “he hasn’t joined the British; but thanks to a friend of yours, I’m afraid he—I’m afraid he—–”

“A friend of mine!” Cap exclaimed. “What the hell you talking about! I ain’t got no friends, only Stevie!”

Doc Means grunted and sighed. “You got me,” he said thickly. “You got me and Peter Merrill. We’re your friends, just the way Verrieul was. Even if it was you that killed Verrieul, we’re still your friends.” He groaned again and snored lightly.

Cap muttered something in which I distinguished only the word “Catamount.” He turned his attention to me once more. “Prob’ly,” he said cautiously, “you don’t mean Doc.”

“No,” I said, “I mean Marie de Sabrevois.”

Cap crouched, his hands on his knees. “Marie de Sabrevois! That hellcat? She ain’t nowhere around here, is she?” In Cap’s voice there was a hoarse mistrust that revealed a deep respect for the talents of Marie de Sabrevois.

“She’s with Burgoyne’s army. She’s close to Burgoyne. She helped take care of Nathaniel after the battle of Valcour. She’s dangerous. I’m afraid, Cap, of what she might do to my brother if I can’t find some way to get him away from her.”

“Listen,” Cap said. “That hellcat had Stevie Nason standing on his head for ten years! If she’d told Stevie pine trees was pink in winter, he’d ’a’ believed it! Yes, by God; he’d ’a’ said, ‘Certainly they’re pink!’ and he’d ’a’ wanted to fight anyone that tried to argue they were blue, or even green. You can’t tell me much about how dangerous that hellcat is! What’s she done to your brother?”

“She’s got him believing the Colonies haven’t a chance to win this war,” I said. “He thinks the British are bound to win.”

Cap looked at me strangely and scratched the corner of his open mouth with a massive thumb, then turned to watch the bateaux crawling down on us from the north, like an endless school of dark waterbugs, to spill red-coated Britishers within striking distance of this gateway to the south. I had a sudden sickening realization that Cap, too, thought the British would win.