Read Chapter 8: BROTHER’S ROAD

Nathaniel returned after midnight with blood on his sleeve.

Not his own, he said.

Elias dragged him into the kitchen before their mother could hear.

“Where are the barrels?”

“Gone.”

“To whom?”

“You know I can’t tell you.”

Elias struck him.

The sound was shockingly loud.

Nathaniel stumbled against the table, stared at his brother, then swung back. Elias ducked badly and took the fist along the jaw. They crashed into a chair.

Amos arrived before either could do worse.

“Enough!”

He planted himself between them.

Nathaniel wiped blood from his lip.

“You hit me over flour.”

“I hit you because Harcourt is watching us.”

“Then perhaps stop working for him.”

“I am keeping him close.”

“You are helping him.”

“I am lying to him.”

Nathaniel froze.

Amos closed his eyes.

Elias realized what he had said.

“What do you mean?” Nathaniel asked.

There was no retreat now.

Elias sat heavily.

“For two years I have passed information to British intelligence.”

Nathaniel’s face hardened.

“And to Continental agents.”

The hardness became confusion.

“What?”

“Most of it false. Some true. Enough on each side to keep access.”

“Why?”

“To protect our shipping. Redirect searches. Move patrols. Keep contracts.”

Nathaniel stared as though seeing a stranger.

“You used the war to protect the warehouses.”

“Yes.”

“People died.”

“Yes.”

“Because of your lies?”

“Possibly.”

Nathaniel turned away.

“God.”

“Do not become moral now. You moved flour through a military occupation.”

“For soldiers who need it.”

“And if the British trace it here, Mother goes to prison. Sarah loses Samuel. Amos hangs as an accomplice.”

Nathaniel faced him again.

“At least I chose a side.”

“And therefore everyone else must pay for your courage?”

Silence.

Amos spoke quietly. “Who got hurt tonight?”

Nathaniel looked at the floor.

“A wagoner. British patrol stopped us near Harlem. He tried to run.”

“Dead?” Elias asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Who were you with?”

Nathaniel shook his head.

Elias’s anger cooled into calculation.

“Did they see you?”

“One soldier may have.”

“Did he know you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Uniform?”

“Provincial. Green facings.”

“Loyalist regiment,” Amos murmured.

Elias stood.

“You cannot stay here.”

Nathaniel laughed bitterly. “Now you want me to disappear?”

“Yes.”

“To protect the business.”

“To protect you.”

Nathaniel looked at him.

Elias continued, “Miriam can move you north.”

“Miriam?”

“A courier.”

“You trust her?”

“No.”

“Excellent.”

“I trust that she needs me.”

Nathaniel shook his head.

“You have made a philosophy of not trusting anyone.”

“No. I trust people to act according to their interests.”

“Then what is mine?”

Elias hesitated.

“To prove you are not me.”

Nathaniel’s face changed.

The truth, once spoken, made the kitchen suddenly intimate.

Nathaniel sat.

“Maybe.”

Elias poured two cups of rum.

“When did you begin carrying supplies?”

“Last autumn.”

“How often?”

“Four times.”

“Through whom?”

“I won’t—”

“Nat. Harcourt already knows about Gideon Rusk. A Continental courier named Caleb Orr disappeared. Someone in Hart’s network may be compromised. If you refuse to tell me because of loyalty, you may be protecting the man who will hang you.”

Nathaniel stared at the cup.

Finally he said, “Jonas Pell.”

Elias knew the name. A shipping broker with a narrow office near Burling Slip. Loyalist in public, politically invisible in private.

“Pell arranged the wagons?”

“Yes.”

“Did he know whose flour?”

“Yes.”

“Then he can identify you.”

“He is one of us.”

“Everyone is one of us until the door locks.”

Nathaniel slammed down the cup.

“You see betrayal everywhere.”

“Because I have purchased it.”

At dawn, Elias went to Jonas Pell’s office.

The door was open.

The room had been searched.

Ledgers lay torn across the floor. A chair was overturned. Blood marked one corner of the desk.

Jonas Pell was gone.

On the wall behind his desk, someone had drawn a small black triangle in charcoal.

Elias stared at it.

A black triangle.

The same symbol he used in his private ledger for British reports.

No one knew that system.

No one except Amos.

And one other person.

His father had invented it.