The Immortal American (The Immortal American Series) (31 page)

Mathew had advised me to tell the redcoats, if asked, any last name other than his. Even though his cousin, the lawyer, John Adams, had defended the Regular soldiers who had been part of the Boston Massacre, it still wasn’t enough to have the name Adams not be hated amongst the British-born soldiers. Samuel Adams had been a very busy man, making speeches and stirring tea parties.

“I am Mrs. . . .” I couldn’t think of any name, other than Adams. I wanted to say I was the wife of Samuel Adams himself. I wanted to watch the Regular officers’ greedy eyes, flickering to my chest and sometimes to my eyes, widen at the realization that I was someone of consequence; I was a woman to be reckoned with. “Beaumont,” I finally choked out.

Good heavens, of all the names to think of. Why hadn’t I just used my maiden name? Lord, what had I just said?

“Hmm.” Captain Parsons’s smile dimmed.

“Your husband is French?” Captain Laurie asked.

“Oh, my husband was born and raised here in Massachusetts. His grandfather was a Huguenot.” I tilted my head with no further explanation.

I was getting rather good at lying, I thought.

“Ah.” Captain Parsons leaned closer to me. “Is your husband a Huguenot also?”

“Oh, no,” I said and rolled my eyes at the Captain, like we were old friends who could tease each other. He liked this informality between us, and peeked again at my breasts to prove it. I continued, though I wanted to smack the men converging around me. “I converted him to His Majesty’s Church years ago. I wouldn’t have married the man otherwise.”

“What a bright woman you are.”

I let my eyes fall to the ground in feigned polite acceptance of the compliment.

“Would you mind telling me where the Barrett farm is located? I have on my map it’s a few miles west on this highway, but we’ve had some problems with the reliability of our maps.”

I swallowed and thought of Mrs. Barrett and her friendship with my mother. Mrs. Barrett was Colonel Barrett’s wife. Colonel Barrett was more than likely stationed only a few hundred yards away from me on the hill over my house. I thought of Mr. Barrett’s farm, one of the wealthiest, and how there had been a stockpile of weapons stored in his barn, but Mathew had informed me that the militia had moved it elsewhere. Most of it, at least.

I loved the Barretts, even though I abhorred their owning slaves. Still, I didn’t want any harm to come to anyone.

As if knowing my thoughts Captain Parsons let his horse walk closer to me, where he whispered, “Don’t worry, pet. No harm will come to these Barretts. We just need the arms–the cannons you claim to be on your slender body. I promise no harm will come to the Barretts themselves.”

“You promise me?”

Captain Parsons smiled and nodded.

“Your map is wrong,” I said quietly. “The Barretts are only two miles from here, and if you break your promise, Captain, I’ll hunt you down like I would a wolf that’s eaten my cattle.”

Captain Parsons let his smile widen, then he slid his eyes over my whole body. “I like you, you know? I’ve never met a woman with your sense of humor before.”

I let my smile widen, sure that my malicious designs were close to becoming palpable. I looked down at the highway and noted nearly a hundred pairs of eyes curiously peering at me.

“’Tis a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Beaumont. I would like to meet your husband one day—the man who married such a rare creature such as you.”

I nodded and curtsied. “I’m sure you’ll meet him soon enough, Captain.”

At that the captain scanned the hill a couple hundred yards from my house, then looked back at me with my smiling, proud face. He bowed his head once and left with Captain Laurie following behind.

I watched through my kitchen’s thick glass window as Captain Parsons divided his troops in half and rode with now a hundred soldiers toward the Barrett’s farm. The other hundred was stationed on the low hill in front of my house, and there were a few other soldiers spanning the North Highway. Of the half that remained, the men were slight of build with long limbs, built for speed—light infantry, I guessed. After all, I was born during a war that savaged the whole world, and had gotten to know the difference between a heavily built grenadier and the light infantry I thought I was perusing.

I hated wearing the damned dress, and threw on a pair of midnight blue breeches and a white shirt, grabbed my cold coffee, sipped, then raced to the parlor window, took another sip, then gagged as I watched the militia—young and old men, rich and poor—spread themselves, hundreds of them, on the hill then descend straight for the Regulars.

Not at all subtle, the militia had their fifers and drummers playing a cheerful tune as they strolled down the hill, muskets in hand or any other weapon they could find on their farm. I saw a few young men—boys, really—holding axes or butcher knives. 

Rushing to another window, I could see Captain Laurie, looking up the hill, then shouting out some kind of order for his men as his horse curled in a tight circle, then trotted back toward the Old North Bridge. The men who stood guard of the highway followed him to the west side of the bridge.

A Regular lieutenant nodded toward Captain Laurie and his retreating men. Captain Laurie rode close to the lieutenant and spoke as his eyes shot toward the approaching militia.

Colonel Barrett was at the front, just like the Regular officers were always in front of their men, so too was my husband, which made me stop breathing and choke. After I finally inhaled, I ravished more of the wild mint leaves. Damn it. I hated just standing and watching, waiting. It was this thought that made me snap, my jaw clenched tight, and I threw the coffee cup on the floor, feeling satisfied as the white porcelain shattered into a tiny white flakes, flakes like snow.

I made tight fists as I wondered what to do other than just watch as the militia, looking like a gigantic blob of men, faced the Regulars, usually a formidable sight, but against so many Provincial’s appeared puny and pathetic.

Colonel Barrett, on a white mare, faced the bridge with a scowl, his eyes scanning toward Concord from time to time.

I rushed to my kitchen and saw out the east window that there was smoke spiraling toward the steel-colored clouds, coming from the town’s Commons. It was a fair amount of smoke, but from the distance I couldn’t tell if it was a house or a barn or what, but obviously something massive was on fire back in Concord. Something was on fire, indeed.

I ran to the parlor again, where Colonel Barrett just finished shouting an order, and the men formed a line on the highway, as the Regulars stood guard of the west side of the bridge. The militia marched two lines at a time that snaked down the road looking like a multi-speckled dragon, like pictures of the Chinese dragons of war. Colonel Barrett, on horseback, strode back up the hill beside my house and consulted with other officers, including my husband who had ridden up the hill with the colonel.

What could I do? What could I do? My heart pushed at my ribs as I stared at Mathew making his way back down to the highway, making me think my chest might explode at any minute. Colonel Barrett gave an order, and the men marched slowly toward the bridge. Their muskets were loaded with long flints, which meant that gunpowder and possibly bullets were inserted in their muskets as well. Then Captain Laurie screamed something to his men, and the soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder and made the short distance to the east side of the bridge.

Along the highway the Concord River had flooded, and the ditches that ran parallel to the road were smothered in smoky cold water. Was it the river? Was the river possessed by a demon who wanted more blood on her watery hands? Daganawida had told me about the spirits of water being the most clever of all, and how I was to flatter and play trickster to the river, to appease the never resting spirit. Or was the river merely a cold witness to my sister’s death, Kimball’s death, and now there were men with muskets who faced each other over that murky water?

Colonel Barrett began to slow his horse as a young militia captain I recognized as an Acton man, who always pestered my sister and I during the counties’ dances, walked in front toward the west entrance of the bridge. Beside the Acton man was a fifer who began a high-pitched, fast-paced, thrashing melody, and somewhere in the multicolored dragon was the beat of the drums.

The last of the Regulars retreating to the east side of the bridge stooped over and tried to pry some of the planks of wood free from the bridge as they were passing.

“Stop harming the bridge!” a militia man yelled.

Captain Laurie said something to his Regular troops, and the bridge was left alone.

Colonel Barrett could be heard giving orders not to shoot unless fired upon. Then he looked directly at Captain Laurie, waiting, it appeared, for the captain to make a further retreat or . . . God, what else could the captain do?

On the east side of the bridge Captain Laurie was in front of his men. His face was ruddy and even from the distance of my house, I saw his visage glistening with sweat. His eyes never focused on anything particular or any one person, instead they bounced from the militiamen to his own, back and forth, thither and hither. He looked nearly mad by the time he screamed, and this I heard distinctly, “Formation for street firing!”

Captain Laurie’s men clustered around the bridge’s opening. They tightened in formation, appearing to be a smaller red blur at the end of the bridge. Although being just a woman with no military education, to me it looked like the perfect target at the end of the bridge. Instead of using the space provided, to appear more intimidating or to be a wider target, the Regulars looked like one sitting red duck.

The militia, led by the Acton man—oh, what was his name? I was so glad to hear when he’d gotten married, hoping that would stop him from trying to pull me too close while we danced the pousette–kept a steady pace as he approached the bridge, only fifty yards from where Captain Laurie was screaming, “Hold the line, boys. Tight formation!”

A lieutenant at the rear of the blood-colored blob shook his head, frowned, and gave out an order to flank the men who were making ready to shoot while in street firing position. The geranium target at the end of the bridge blurred with activity, but none of it looked organized. Then the redcoats tightened in on themselves all the more.

As Isaac Davis—yes! That was his name—marched over the threshold of the bridge, the tight scarlet ball aimed their muskets over their comrades shoulders, bayonets affixed, making the muskets sway like slithering snakes. And that was when a shot was fired. I jumped and shook as the report of the gunfire rattled my house. Gasping and holding my lips with my fingertips, another redcoat fired and Mr. Davis was no longer walking forward.

Another shot rang out, and the fifer who had stood beside Mr. Davis dropped. The music stopped, but the beat remained.

A man screamed, “God damn it! They’re firing ball!” 

Another militia man yelled, “Fire, fellow-soldiers! For God’s sake, fire!” 

Then the militia, while marching forward, returned fire. The volley of popping noises was, at first, a loud bang, but then succeeded in no rhythm but steady enough so I could hear men yelling, but no coherent words could be made out.

Then another returning shot was fired in loud staccato booms of smoke and balls flying in the air, whistling past like gaps in a house can make during a Noreastern storm.

Then the red blob became smaller and smaller, finally collapsing as the Regulars ran in retreat. It happened so quickly–first one man, then another and another ran, ran as fast as they could in no formation, no lines, away from the bridge—the fastest evacuation I thought possible to be executed by a hundred men. The Regulars were outnumbered more than four times, and to make matters worse, even I, a simple farmer’s daughter, had seen that they’d been outmaneuvered.

The retreat lasted mere seconds, and the militia stood on the bridge, some on the highway, in awe. What had just happened? There were men lying on the bridge and around the bridge. How many were dead? How many were injured? How many were just cowering, crying for their mothers?

Mathew, still on horseback, was standing on the highway. He looked toward our house with a slight grin. The whole of the militia wore a crazed face. If I were to guess, they never would have thought they could have made the world’s strongest military run away. It was a collective face of four hundred men that was part stunned, part angry, and part rejoicing.

The jubilation commenced in a loud huzzah from someone in the crowd, then someone laughed, and the large mob whooped to God for their luck. I saw a few men giving chase to the lobsterbacks, while others ran off, and some knelt to either pray or cry.

Colonel Barrett screamed; his horse trampled the highway in a nervous pounding of her hooves, and finally the men listened. The colonel no longer had a reason to yell once the men stood still, so I couldn’t tell what he was saying. But by his pointing I gathered that some of the four hundred men were to collect in the woods again behind my farm, and others were to secure the bridge.

Mathew asked something of Colonel Barrett who nodded. Mathew nodded himself, dismounted, and walked with Cherry up the drive to our house.

I stood in the kitchen fidgeting while I waited for Mathew, and within seconds he strode in on a big smile and thunderous confidence.