Conceived in Liberty (12 page)

“I said you'd go, and I'll care for you,” I told her proudly.

“I won't ask any care of you, Allen. I'll fend for myself——”

“I'll fend for you. It'll be like you were wedded to me. I'll fend for you.”

“Some day, Allen—you might wed me?”

“There's a fair lot of things I'm thinking to do,” I said.

Then she slept. I held her close to me, and I lay looking up at the stars, watching the slow rise and sway of sparks against the dark sky. I thought of Ely and Jacob, and tried to understand that I would not be with them again. For the first time, I recalled how Ely had been when we left.

I must have slept. Kenton was waking me.

“Your watch, Allen,” he said.

I got up, feeling the cold eat into me as I moved from Bess. She murmured my name in her sleep.

“You saw anything?”

“Nothing,” Kenton said.

He curled up by the fire. I leaned on my musket and watched the flames.

IX

I
N THE
morning, I awake to the sound of bugles from the encampment. We can't be very far away. The bugles are thin, but they sound clear in the morning air.

Bess, opening her eyes, looks at me and smiles. Her smile is a deep, happy awareness of my presence. She touches my face, passes her fingers across my beard.

“You're better?” I ask her.

“Better. A hunger inside of me, but I can stand hunger, Allen. I've no fear of hunger.”

Charley is feeding the fire. A moment later, Kenton comes across the field, holding a few frozen ears of corn.

“We'll break our fast on this,” he calls.

“I wouldn't think of breaking fast, but of getting out of here,” Charley says. “We're too near to the encampment, and far enough away to be deserters.”

“They'll not stop us any more,” I say. “After last night, they'll not stop us.”

“We'll go north and east,” Kenton says thoughtfully. “There are good roads through the Jersey bottoms.”

“If we had horses——”

Charley looks at us.

“It's horses—or dying in the snow,” I say.

We toast the corn over the fire. It's not fit food for a pig, but we eat it eagerly.

“I dug it under the snow,” Kenton says. “It's a wonder it stayed so long. The ground's scraped clean of food.”

“We can go east—to Norristown. It's a good farmland over that way.”

We finish the corn—close to the husk. We take our guns and look at the priming. Then we start off.

We walk slowly in the direction of the King of Prussia Road. Last night was a lesson. We know how little strength we have, and that we must husband it. It's cold this morning, but not so cold as last night. The sun comes up, clear and bright, making long blue shadows on the snow. The snow glistens, and each crystal shoots a tiny beam of light into our eyes.

A sparkle in Bess' eyes. She turns her face to me, showing me how long her steps are.

“I'm a good walker, Allen—a fine good walker.”

“A fine walker,” I agree.

We're all of us eager. Kenton steps out ahead, long strides, and confidence in the way he swings his heavy musket. We're content that Kenton leads. He's four years older than I am, a powerful man. Bess is like a boy, thin, her long dark hair twisted into braids. Charley sings snatches of song.

Bess keeps glancing at me. She says: “You've no regrets, Allen?”

“No regrets——”

“I think of Ely,” Charley says. “I was never understanding men like Ely. A fearfully tolerant man.”

“He might have come——”

“He wouldn't come without Jacob. There's a deep bond between the two of them—for all the black murder in Jacob's heart. There's no other man Jacob ever loved, unless it was the Jew. I cannot make it out, but I've never seen such sorrow as Jacob had when the Jew died.”

“I'm fearful of Jews,” Bess says. “I had not seen a Jew until I was fifteen. My mother said she'd show me a Jew some time, so I'd have a deeper knowledge of the Book.”

“There were a pretty lot of Jews in Boston,” Charley says. “Sam Adams was a great one to bleed them. He'd spin them a fine tale of revolution and take their last shilling, and there was more respect for him for bleeding a Jew than for all his wild talk.”

“It's said Hamilton's a Jew——”

“He has the look in his eyes.”

We're near the road now. Kenton waits for us. He's standing there, listening.

“What is it?” I ask him.

“We're too near the camp. I'm thinking we should bide a while longer in the forest. Ye're safer in the trees.”

“We make better time on the road.”

“It's Quaker country hereabout. I'd put no trust in any Quaker.”

“Or fear them—” I said confidently.

We walk out on the road, Bess close to me. Now, again, seeing the stretch of open road before us, we realize the distances. Distances pile up for hundreds of miles to the snowy mountains that bind the Mohawk. Bess presses close, looks up at my face. I understand now that she knows, as I know, that she won't go that great distance. There is no strength in her for that. She stands like a small, frightened boy, half-grown.

She says: “Sometimes I'm afeard, Allen. Hold me.”

“You hear anything?” Kenton demands.

I shake my head. We walk on, along the road towards Norristown. We walk very slowly, feeling the cold more than before. A hundred yards more—we stop.

“I hear horses,” Kenton says.

“Not from the camp.” I can hear it now—a thudding muffled by the snow.

Bess looks at me, shaking her head.

“Not from the camp,” Charley cries. “It's up the road.”

“More than one horse.”

“Farmers don't ride like that.”

“Get out—for the trees!” Kenton shouts.

But there are fields on either side the road, trees only in the direction from which the sounds of horses are coming. A heap of snow on the side of the road suggests a stone wall underneath. Long shadows on the road, and a glare from the snow; it makes a scene to stay in my mind.

We stand there like people who have lost all power of movement. Bess says:

“I brought it on you, Allen. God forgive me——”

Kenton leads the way off the road, Charley after him. Kenton stumbles, and Charley bends to help him to his feet. I take Bess' hand and drag her through the drift against the stone wall. We climb over the wall. Kenton is stumbling along, like a man who has been shot.

I turn round, see a dozen men on horse coming down the road.

“McLane's raiders,” Kenton sobs.

A man pulls out in front, and I hear him crying for us to halt. They begin to gallop and the thud of their horses' hoofs is like a drumbeat in my ears. I drag Bess along.

Kenton and Charley are waiting for me. They see that with Bess I can't reach the woods before the cavalrymen, but nevertheless they wait. They hold their muskets before them.

I cry: “Don't shoot—for God's sake. Run for it!”

We're almost at the trees. I think that we'll make it. I sob with pain of the running.

Some of the horses are floundering in the snow. The man out in front cries: “Stop or we'll fire!”

“The hell with you!” Kenton screams. “Keep a run, Allen! They're lost in the snow!”

I glance back once more. We're almost up to Kenton and Charley. They've lowered their muskets and are starting toward the trees. But the men are dismounting, dropping from their horses.

A blast of musketry crashes behind us. Bess is torn from my hand, crying.

Kenton sees; he runs toward me, cursing, Charley after him. I face round and the cavalrymen are closing in on us. I see it all in a red haze, and I fire. Kenton and Charley too; like machines, their muskets go off. I notice one of the cavalrymen falling, so slowly that the picture is impressed permanently upon my mind. I look at Bess, and try to understand what has happened. Bess lies in the snow in a little heap.

They close in on us, and there's no fight left. I wonder-why we fired. They're like us, bearded, ragged, their feet bound in bloodstained cloths. They're like us, thin, worn.

They hold onto us. I strain to get away—to Bess. I say: “Let me go to her! God damn you—you've got us now. Let me go to her!”

McLane stands in front of us. He's a young man, clean-shaven except for a small moustache, wearing white breeches and a good blue coat, sword, pistol, a cocked hat. As he stands there, panting, his breath steams out.

“Deserters?” he asks. Behind him, two men are carrying the one I saw fall. McLane whirls round. “Who is it?”

“Dave Seely——”

“He's hurt?”

We all see it. The man is shot through the head. Vaguely, I wonder whose bullet it was—thinking of Bess. Whose bullet there?

“You filthy swine!” McLane says to us. “You damned, cowardly swine! You'll hang for this if I have to gibbet you myself.”

Kenton stares sullenly. Charley says: “Let him go to his woman. You shot his woman.”

I try to tear loose. Some of the men are turning Bess over. I scream: “Hands off her! Christ, leave her alone!”

“It's a woman,” one of them says.

I plead: “Let me go to her. You have us now. That's enough, isn't it? Let me go to her.”

“Hold your damned tongue!”

“Let me go to her—” I pull loose. I don't know how, but I pull loose, and nobody tries to stop me. I run over to Bess, and the men who are bending over her stand aside. I kneel down next to her. She's shot somewhere in the body, because all the front of her clothes is stained with blood.

I rub her cheeks. She opens her eyes, and I keep rubbing her cheeks.

“Allen,” she says.

I can't say anything. You fight in an army for two years, and you know a death wound; you know the sign of it in a man's eyes. She knows; the deep knowledge of it in her eyes. What can I say?

She says: “Allen—I brought a wrong on you. I'm no fit woman for a man.”

I shake my head. Maybe it seems to her that I'm going away, because she whispers:

“Bide with me, Allen—for a while.”

Very slowly, I stand up. I say aloud: “I should have known—it was such a distance for a woman to walk.”

The cavalrymen take hold of me and lead me back. McLane is watching me, oddly. Kenton's face is despair and nothing else. When I come close to him, Charley Green reaches out a hand for my arm.

“Allen?”

I say to myself, in all the crash of shooting, it might have been someone else. It might have been. I tell myself, We're going back.

“It's no great horror—a dying like that,” Charley says softly.

“I'm not sorrowing for her,” I say desperately. “I'm not sorrowing for her.”

“Easy, Allen.”

“Easy, sure—you'll be with her soon enough,” McLane says.

Kenton cries: “Leave him alone, God damn you! Leave off taunting him!”

They march us back toward the road. I look round, and see that it's still morning, a glorious cold morning. As we reach the road, we see a brigade coming on the run, panting. They must have heard the shooting in the encampment. The brigade gathers round. They keep telling the story.

“Pennsylvania deserters——”

Two men carrying Bess. They walk alongside of me.

“It's Wayne's boast he has no deserters.”

“He'll take off some of his pride, Wayne will.”

“We were walking to the Mohawk,” Kenton laughs. “God—we were walking to the Mohawk.”

McLane hands us over to the officer of the brigade. “Take them to the redoubt,” he says, “and hold them. They've murdered one of my men. I'll charge them myself.”

“We're no murderers!” Green cried. “We shot after your men fired on us.”

“Take these swine away,” McLane says.

They marched us back slowly. He was no hard man, the officer of that brigade, a young man whose name was Captain Kennedy. They were Massachusetts men. There were a few there whom Kenton knew, and they made things easier for us.

Their officer saw how weak we were, and he marched us slowly. But it was a long way back, a weary way. Kenton came up and put an arm round me.

“It was a good run last night, Allen,” he said. “I didn't think it to end so soon. I didn't think of no cavalry to find us out right away.”

“I'm not blaming you, Kenton.”

“The lass is dead. You'll be blaming me for that, Allen? Her blood's on my hands.”

“No—I'm not putting the blame on any man.”

We marched down the King of Prussia Road to the crossroads, then turned right toward the redoubt. As we passed between the dugouts of Varnum's brigades, Kennedy stopped and had them send out a drummer. The men, part of the Pennsylvania and New Jersey line, flocked out of their huts to see us pass. The drummer beat a low, monotonous roll—for the condemned and dead. Some of the men dropped their heads. We went through slowly; I heard one man say:

“Poor, damned devils.”

All the time moving—the cold air, the sunlight glinting from the snow, half-blinding us; I didn't think much. I understood that Bess was dead, but she was already part of all my memories of the army. They come and go, like the doctor had said, like Moss Fuller had died. I can't think.

We march into the redoubt. Into a cold, bare log hut, where Colonel Varnum sits at a camp table. Kennedy salutes. The guard stand at attention. But we're used up. We stand limply, our hands hanging at our sides.

“Deserters, sir,” Kennedy says. “Taken by Captain McLane. They resisted arrest, and one of Captain McLane's men was killed. I have their muskets, all fired. McLane's man had a ball in his head. They had a woman with them, and she was shot in the breast. McLane's men fired a volley.”

“What regiment?” the Colonel asked tonelessly. Too many incidents like ours had occurred for it to matter a great deal.