Home of the Brave

Home of the Brave

A novel by Jeffry S.
Hepple

Volume Two of the Gone for
Soldiers series.

Sequel to Land of the
Free.

Smashwords
Edition

Copyright 2009, Jeffry S.
Hepple

All rights
Reserved

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you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is dedicated to
Lisa and Scott, my pride and joy.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank
the following people for their encouragement and help in the
laborious process of editing and proof-reading: Dona Dean, Beth
Horsch, Margaret Lake, Teresa Shaw, Geoff Thomas, Brian Palesch and
special thanks to Susan Trotter.

Book One

April 5, 1828

Van Buskirk Point, New
Jersey

The Van Buskirk family was
seated on the broad porch where the current generation was dyeing
and painting dozens of hard boiled eggs.

“John!” Caroline Van Buskirk
shouted. “You bring that Easter egg back here this
minute.”

“Let him have it,” her
husband, Jack, said with a chuckle. “What harm will it
do?”

“We’ll have an uneven number
of eggs for the egg hunt tomorrow,” she answered.

“Why does that
matter?”

“It matters,” Jack’s sister,
Anna, growled unpleasantly. “If you want little John to have an
egg, go boil him one.”

“Oh hell.” Jack jumped off
the porch, chased his three-year-old down and took back the
purloined egg, causing an instant flood of tears and a shrill
scream of protest.

Yank reached down, took an
egg from Anna’s row, cracked it and began peeling it. “Now the
number’s even again. Give little John his egg back,
Jack.”

“Father,” Anna
complained.

Jack gave the egg back to
his son and the screeching stopped as quickly as it had
started.

“We really should
discourage the children from naming their first born child
John
,” Marina said to
Yank.

“Why? I’m Yank, Jack is Jack
and little John is John.”

“That’s just it. We’re now
using adjectives to make the distinction. A few more Johns and
we’ll be giving them numbers.”

“Two of us are Thomas, and I
find that very confusing,” Thomas complained.

“I’m Tom, you’re Thomas,”
his great-uncle replied.

“Aunt Nan calls you Thomas,”
Thomas challenged.

“Yes she does,” Tom
chuckled. “Among other things.”

“I feel left out,” Robert
said.

“You’ve always been the odd
one,” Tom teased.

Robert gave him a cold
look.

Nannette, who was sitting
behind Robert in a rocking chair, bent over and kissed him on top
of the head. “You’re special.”

“Are you really going to
retire from the army, Dad?” William asked Yank.

“It’s an Army regulation,”
Jack answered, before Yank could. “Thirty years maximum service,
regardless of rank.”

“Well it’s a stupid
regulation,” William grumbled. “It forces the most experienced
officers out of the army.”

“There’s a reason for it,
William.” Yank wiped hard boiled egg off his chin with his pocket
handkerchief. “After the War, the army was full of senior officers
who had purchased British commissions or raised militia and were
granted commissions in the regular American army. A few of them
were fine leaders, but most were not. The regulation was put in
place to thin them from the corps.”

“Speaking of commissions,”
William began.

Thomas scowled at him and
shook his head at him vehemently.

William made an apologetic
face. “Never mind.”

“You can’t do that.” Marina
kicked at William. “You started it, now you finish it.”

William looked at Thomas and
Thomas shook his head again.

Yank turned toward Marina.
“Do you know this deep secret?”

“Yes; Thomas wants to resign
his commission to start a surveying and engineering firm,” she
replied, “and he’s asked William to join him.”

“We were trained to be
surveyors and engineers at West Point, Dad,” Thomas argued,
anticipating Yank’s disagreement.

Yank shrugged. “I have no
objection, as long as you both complete your contractual
time-in-service to repay the American people for their investment
in your education.”

“But Dad,” William whined.
“I hate instructing at West Point. I really hate it.”

“How many years did you
agree to serve in exchange for your education, William?” Yank
asked.

“Four.”

“And how many have you
served?”

“Two.”

Yank shrugged. “Then I
suppose Thomas will have to start the business on his own while you
complete two more years of your obligation.”

Thomas looked troubled.
“There’s a little more to it, Dad.”

“I’m listening.”

“Do you know what an
empresarial grant is?”

Yank shook his head.
“No.”

“The Mexican government has
granted land in Texas to perhaps a dozen companies and
individuals,” Thomas said. “The recipients of the grants are called
empresarios. I’ve bought four thousand, four-hundred and
twenty-eight acres in Texas from an empresario named Stephen
Austin.”

“What has that to do with
William’s obligation?” Yank asked.

“I’ll need William to help
me improve it. If I don’t improve it within two years my land is
forfeit.”

Marina leaned forward. “More
to the point, what does it have to do with surveying and
engineering, Thomas?”

“Surveyors and engineers
will be in great demand in Texas, Mother.”

“You failed to mention that
little detail to me.” Marina grumbled. “This whole plan of yours to
start a business has blossomed into a boyhood
adventure.”

“Wait.” Yank held his hand
up. “I’m still confused. Why do you need four thousand acres of
land to start a surveying business, Thomas?”

“Well.” Thomas hesitated. “I
really don’t. But when I was investigating Texas I discovered the
empresarial grants and the land was so inexpensive…”

“How much did you pay this
man?” Marina interrupted. “What is his name?”

The children’s secret
nickname for their mother was
The
Inquisitor
. Now Thomas turned to meet the
inquisitor’s stare. “Austin is his name, Mother. Stephen F. Austin.
I paid him five hundred and fifty-three dollars and fifty
cents.”

“For how much land did you
say?” Tom asked in surprise.

“Four thousand, four-hundred
and twenty-eight acres,” Thomas repeated. “The price is twelve and
a half cents an acre.”

“Why, that’s one tenth the
price of land in Kentucky,” Tom said.

“What’s the catch?” Yank
asked.

“Well,” Thomas began,
“Settlers won’t have to pay customs duties for seven years or taxes
for ten.”

“I’m waiting for the other
shoe, Thomas,” Yank insisted. “Stop selling and answer
me.”

“I have to actively raise
livestock,” Thomas offered hopefully. “I was thinking cattle.
There’s a big ranch just across the Bay on Long Island. I thought
maybe I’d sail over there.”

“Thomas.” Yank leaned
forward and fixed him with an icy stare. “I know you’re hiding
something. No one is going to sell land that cheaply. What’s the
catch?”

“In return for the land
we’re expected to become Mexican citizens,” Thomas replied
quickly.

“What?” Marina exploded.
“After everything this family has suffered to permit you to be an
American citizen – that your grandfather and two of his brothers
died for – that your uncle, your aunt, your father and I have
done…” She spluttered to a stop, red-faced, and unable to
continue.

“That’s unacceptable to your
family, Thomas,” Yank completed for her. “We’re Americans and we
don’t give up our citizenship for anything.”

Thomas started to argue but
William signaled him to leave it alone and turned to look at
Nannette. “How many children are you expecting for the Easter egg
hunt, Aunt Nan?”

“Less than fifty,” she said
sadly. “It’s fewer every year. Everyone is so busy
nowadays.”

Tom got up and hobbled down
the porch steps to light his pipe and look out across the property.
“When I was a boy, before we moved from here to Elizabeth Town, the
Easter picnic used to be so big that this whole meadow was covered
with table cloths, each one surrounded by a family. From the
widow’s walk, it looked like a giant quilt.”

“I didn’t know that you ever
lived in this house, Uncle,” Anna replied.

“We didn’t,” Tom said. “This
was Uncle Abraham’s house when I was a boy.” He turned and pointed
behind the house. “There used to be five other big houses up there
where the woods are now, but they were burned down during the
War.”

“By Patriots?” Jack
asked.

Tom shook his head. “By
Tories. But it was an accident. Uncle Abraham’s regiment used this
property as headquarters. His officers and some of their wives
lived in the houses and the rankers lived in tents. I never knew
the details of what happened, but I know that the fire started in
the tent city and spread.”

“The two back wings of this
house burned too,” Nannette added. “Abraham replaced the kitchen
but that’s all. It was much larger before the fire. More than twice
as big as it is now. I have the architectural drawings
somewhere.”

Tom nodded. “There was a
garden back there between the wings that extended all the way to
the orchard. And a huge oak tree, that was eight feet across at the
base. My brothers and I used to...” He chuckled and shook his head.
“Sorry. I’ll stop now. Old man’s rambling.”

Yank pointed across the lawn
toward a copse of trees. “There was a fort down there and another
one on the Newark side when this was first settled. You can still
see the foundation stones.”

“There were several
families living here back then,” Tom added. “They had their own
militia, their own church up there by the cemetery, and a
constabulary. This was called
Constable’s
Hook
back then.”

“Too bad that politics split
up the family,” Anna observed.

“Remember that,” Yank
replied.

“What does that mean?” she
asked heatedly.

Marina saw the looks of
confusion exchanged by her other children and intervened. “Anna is
working for the committee to re-elect President Adams,” she
explained.

“What?” Robert stood up to
face Anna. “John Quincy Adams is a pompous ass and anyone with good
sense knows that.”

“Andrew Jackson is a jackass
and anyone with good sense knows that,” Anna fired back.

“What do you think, Uncle
Thomas,” Yank asked.

Tom shrugged. “I’m going to
vote against the Democratic-Republicans this time, but I’m not
joining the Democrats.”

“The party of the President
is now called the National Republican Party,” Anna corrected. “And
I simply cannot believe that this family could turn their backs on
our Party and our Country.”

“Adams has destroyed the
Party and is ruining this Country,” William said. “He’s an elitist
liberal who has turned his back on the grass roots conservatives
that elected him. The man even refused to take the oath of office
on a bible.”