Ashes (26 page)

The fellows exploded into such loud laughter, it fair made the ground shake beneath. Indeed, a few laughed so hard that tears came to their eyes.

“Armies cast up much deadlier shells, Country,” Curzon explained gently. “Mortar shells. Hollow iron balls packed with gunpowder and fired from cannons. A cannonball will kill a lad by taking off his leg or head. But the explosion of a shell can injure many, even kill them.”

“Ready, lads?” called Isaac. “On yer feet for a new drill.”

They all stood.

“Prepare for the Lord Shellhawk maneuver!”

They crouched, grinning like children.

“Shell!”

They launched at one another, tumbling and rolling in the mud, laughing so hard, I thought they'd wet their breeches, which I'd then have to wash. But they'd earned their fun.

Curzon caught my eye. “I lived up to my promise, Country. Avoided all cannonballs and even the exploding shells.”

“You must continue to do so,” I said. “A true promise lasts forever.”

  *  *  *  

The fever excitement of the encampment burned high as work continued on the trench, along with preparations for the cannons, which were due to arrive at any moment.

Ruth's mood, however, turned vexatious. She was not sour with me in particular, not like those dreadful months after we found her. She'd gotten out of sorts with the entire world, absentminded and secretive, unwilling to respond to the friendly teasing of Curzon and the others. I questioned her about this in a gentle manner, but she drew inside herself and would give me no answers.

The morning the long-anticipated cannons finally arrived, Sibby asked if I could spare Ruth to help her with the washing at the frog pond. I was grateful for the offer. With Ruth in trusted hands, I took the small kettle I'd injured with my hatchet to the blacksmith, who had finally agreed to repair it.

As I returned from the forge, I was startled to see Ruth walking ahead of me on the road. She should have been at the frog pond till midday. Something about her manner was odd. She walked slowly, her haversack over her shoulder, occasionally peering into the high thornbushes that grew on the right side of the road. Had a goat or pig escaped into the undergrowth? A chicken?

When we reached the crossroads, she turned left to make her way to the cook fire. I followed but said nothing to her about what I had seen. She was more vexatious as the day went on, forgetting to turn the pork and thus burning it, and neglecting to return the knives to their box. Come suppertime she claimed she was not hungry, wrapping her bread and meat in a rag and stowing it in her haversack. I felt her forehead for fever and made her remove her boot to prove that the old wound on her foot had not again filled with pus.

She called me a looby and stuck the foot in my face so I could fully appreciate the everyday stink of it. The old wound had not reopened, and my relief was such that I did not scold her.

Our fellows had the duty of guarding the trench diggers that night. They marched off as soon as they'd devoured their meal. While I washed up, Ruth split enough firewood to keep the fire going and make sure that our breakfast tasks would be easier. She swung the axe with anger, it seemed, but only shook her head when I asked if anything troubled her. Once she'd split and stacked enough wood, she said she was tired and wanted to go to our hut and sleep, even though it was long before we normally turned in.

“I'll walk with you,” I said, thinking to ask Sibby and Cristena if they'd heard the rumors that the British prince, William Henry, was to be kidnapped from New York.

“No!” Ruth exclaimed. “You stay here!”

“Are you sure you feel well? There is camp fever in the Pennsylvania regiment, all manner of bowel disorders, they say.”

“You stay here,” she repeated.

She would not meet my eye, which signaled to me that she was definitely up to mischief.

“Go on, then,” I said. “Sleep tight.”

  *  *  *  

I followed her.

Her mind was not devious enough to check behind her or try to disguise her path. She was not headed to our hut. I thought she might be planning to visit her friends in the horse corrals. That would explain why her supper was carefully wrapped in her haversack; she was bringing a treat for the pregnant mare owned by a French officer with an unpronounceable name. Critters made her feel better when people didn't.

Dark comes early in October, bringing pumpkin-bright sunsets and showers of falling leaves. A few drifted down upon Ruth, but she didn't look up, didn't marvel at their beauty. She strode forward until she reached the hedgerow of thornbushes where I'd spotted her earlier.

She paused then and for the first time looked about her. Her face brought to mind a child stealing a forbidden slice of cake. I slid behind a sutler's booth and watched, amazed, as the thorn hedge was mysteriously parted by unseen hands. Ruth removed her haversack and handed it through the opening. A moment later the sack reappeared, looking limp and empty. Ruth grabbed it, said something to the bushes that I could not hear, then hurried away in the direction of the women's huts.

She was crying.

I was torn between wanting to talk to her and needing to know who was hiding behind the hedge. I waited until she was out of sight, picked up a stout stick, and walked up to the hedge. The thornbushes parted.

Aberdeen's face appeared in the shadows.

“Please, Isabel!” he called hoarsely.

P
ERSUADED OF THE JUST RIGHT WHICH ALL MANKIND HAVE TO
F
REEDOM, NOTWITHSTANDING HIS OWN STATE OF BONDAGE, WITH AN HONEST DESIRE TO SERVE THIS
C
OUNTRY . . . DID, DURING THE RAVAGES OF
L
ORD
C
ORNWALLIS THRO' THIS STATE . . . ENTER INTO THE SERVICE OF THE
M
ARQUIS
L
AFAYETTE
. . . . H
E OFTEN AT PERIL OF HIS OWN LIFE FOUND MEANS TO FREQUENT THE
B
RITISH
C
AMP.

–S
ECOND PETITION OF
J
AMES
A
RMISTEAD TO THE
V
IRGINIA
G
ENERAL
A
SSEMBLY FOR HIS FREEDOM BASED ON HIS SERVICE AS A SPY FOR THE
P
ATRIOTS

W
E MET AT THE FAR
end of the hedgerow, away from passersby and prying eyes. He resembled more the boy I'd met at Riverbend than the confident lad who had tried to convince me to join the British. His filthy, ragged clothes looked like he'd been chased through acres of thorn hedges, and he gobbled Ruth's bread fast as a starving pig. But his appearance and manner did not move my heart.

“What in the name of heaven is wrong with you?” I demanded. “What did you do to Ruth to make her cry? And why are you hiding in the woods like a rogue?”

“Shhh,” he warned. His desperate eyes darted, searching the shadows. “I did nothing to harm her; I never would! Walk with me. I'll tell you all, I swear.”

“I cannot tarry.”

“Please,” he said. “I can talk quick.”

I took in the sounds of the camp around us, measured which direction would offer a bit of privacy without danger. “Follow me,” I said at last.

His story came out between bites of food and sips from the canteen slung over his neck. He had not been driven out of Yorktown like the dead we saw in the woods. Indeed, he was still acting the spy, reporting on conditions in the encampment to the British.

“When they treat you like this?” I asked, aghast.

“Like what?” He chewed a grisly bit of beef. “Everyone in Yorktown is hungry. But that will change any day. Redcoat army's coming from New York.” He held up one hand. “Half will arrive in ships.” He held up the other hand. “Half will arrive overland.” He softly slapped his hands together. “Patriots and French gonna be trapped, smashed to bits between the two.”

“What if you're wrong?”

“I'm not.” He tried to smile, but it looked uncertain. “That's why I've come for Ruth. I mean to marry her.”

“You're barmy.” I snorted at the absurdity. “She's only twelve years old, and younger still in the way she sees the world.”

“You ran off with Curzon at the same age.”

“We escaped,” I pointed out. “We journeyed as friends, as companions, nothing more. Ruth is not going anywhere with you.” I picked up my skirts to leave him. “Farewell to you.”

He grabbed my elbow. “Come with us.”

I stopped as if he'd hit me in the face with a board.

“The noose is tightening, Isabel,” he said. “This is my last trip. If you both come with me now, I can keep you safe. You can wait upon the table of Lord Cornwallis himself!”

“He told you that, did he?”

“Nay,” he admitted. “But we'll figger something.”

“We're safe here,” I said. “We have work and food and at least a few folks we can trust. The British deserters say that everyone in Yorktown is in despair, that people there are living in caves by the river.”

His laugh startled me. “Never trust folks who betray their country.”

“Like you?”

He lifted his chin. “Patriots ain't fighting for us, Isabel.”

I thought about the men in our company, even the white ones, who were all committed to the same kind of freedom. However, there were more white people like Lockton, Hallahan, and Bellingham who looked at me and mine and saw not people, but tools that would earn them money. They did not see us for the people that we were, people just the same as them.

But Curzon's habit of remembering the sunshine that waited beyond the clouds had begun to infect me. “Some of them are fighting for us,” I said. “And I mean to help them win.”

“Then you'll lose everything,” Aberdeen said bitterly. “Come with me, and bring Ruth.”

A loud burst of laughter from a group of fellows on the road caused us both to freeze in the shadows. We waited until the boisterous voices had faded away.

“If you try to steal my sister,” I warned, “I'll hand you over to General Washington myself.”

“Don't fret.” He sighed and sipped more water. “She won't leave without you.”

“What?”

“Tried three times to get her to join me. She's a stubborn cuss, worse than that old donkey was.”

His words made my heart sing, but his downcast face made it clear that his view of Ruth's choice was much different from mine.

“Mebbe my dreaming is overlarge,” he admitted. “But with the three of us working for the King's army, we could get to New York for certain, or mebbe some other place.”

“Like sugar plantations in Jamaica?” I asked. “Barbados? Oh, indeed, the British have plenty of work for people like us.”

A shower of leaves fell between us.

“You used to say that both sides were wrong,” he finally said.

“Mostly they are,” I admitted. “But there might be enough good-hearted souls fighting for the Patriot cause to make a difference.”

“Might?” he echoed. “What if you're wrong?”

“What if you're wrong about the British reinforcements?”

He shrugged. “King George rules the world, they say. They'll come.”

“Your place is here. Stay with us,” I urged. “We'll find you work with the French, if you can't stomach the Continentals. Think of how happy Ruth would be.”

I surprised myself by bringing up Ruth like that. I'd been jealous of her affection for Aberdeen from the first moment I realized the depth of their friendship. Now I was encouraging him to join with us because it would cheer her and be the safest course for him.

He brushed the crumbs from his hands. “When the troops come from New York and destroy your army, I'll try to find you both.”

The words were harsh, but his voice cracked as he said them. He was caught between boyhood and manhood. It pained my heart to see him trying to be braver than he was.

He walked a few paces closer to the thorn hedge and peered through it before returning to me and asking in a low voice, “When will the rebel cannons get here?”

The question startled me. “Beg pardon?”

“They're digging the trench to blast cannonballs at us. So how many days until the cannons arrive? I need to know, so tell me.”

“Your mission here is to spy on us?” I asked coldly. “You can go to the Devil. Get out of my sight before I scream and turn you in myself.”

“The redcoats already know the cannons are here,” he said, eyes sad. “I just wanted to know which side has truly claimed your heart.”