The Turning of Anne Merrick (42 page)

Brian trudged along with his big feet stuffed into her old buckled walking shoes. Anne noticed the wisp of a mustache just beginning to form on his upper lip.
And Jim could pass for a girl… a very thin and ornery girl. Both of them, so young…

These boys had been swept up in this war—engulfed by it—first on the battlefield, then in prison, and now in camp. Yet, no matter the depth of the water, or the strength of the current, they somehow always managed to kick up to the surface, take big gulps of air, and keep on swimming forward.

They know how to survive.

Jim fell back to flank Anne, and he slipped his thin, cold hand into hers, squeezing it tight. “Don’t be angry, Annie.”

“I’m not angry with either of you… I’m just… just feeling out of sorts. Some days this war gets me down, and I wonder whether all our tribulation is worth the price paid.” Anne forced a smile. “I’ll feel better once we get the two of you well and squared away with some proper gear. We can’t have your mates see you walking about in lady clothes, can we?”

Sally threw her arm around Brian. “There’s a kettle of pease porridge on the grate, and Pink says she’s going to make some Southron biscuits to go with it.”

Brian’s eyes lit up. “Beaten biscuits?”

Pink nodded. “
Beat for an hour at least with the flat of an ax.”

“I can help,” Brian offered. “My ma taught me how.”

“Stop!” Sally raised her hand and they all pulled to a halt, listening. “D’ye hear that?”

A spate of gunshots rang out and echoed through the valley, making it hard to discern the direction of the fire. Pink near leapt from her skin when a cannon boomed, and flocks of birds roosting in the woodlands went fluttering up into the air.

“Redcoats?” Jim asked.

“Wheesht!” Sally cocked her head. “The shouting—it’s coming from the main gate.”

They struggled up to the hilltop to see a company of horsemen riding as advance and rear guard to a string of eight covered wagons drawn by mule and ox.

“They’re back!” Anne yelled, and took off in a run, tumbling and sliding down the steep hillside shouting, “Jack! JACK!”

Standing in the bandbox of the fourth wagon, Jack waved both arms over his head. “Annie!”

Covered in snow, Anne clambered up into the slow-moving wagon and threw herself, laughing, into his arms. Jack drew her down to sit on his lap, and she covered him with kisses—kissed his beard caked with ice, his skin burned red with the wind, and lips chapped and cracked with the cold. “I’m so glad you’re back…” she said, laughing and crying at once. “So glad…”

“My sweet Annie, I missed you so.” Jack touched her cheek and caught a tear on his gloved fingertip. “Don’t cry. It’s too damn cold for tears.”

“Jack! Woo-hoo! Woo-
hoooo
!” Brian and Jim whooped, galloping in a cloud of snow coming down the hill.

Arm in arm, Sally and Pink came downhill using a more careful step, and Sally called, “Welcome back, ye rascal pirates!”

Jack waved and asked, “Is that Pink with Sally?”

Anne nodded. “Captain Dunaway passed on, and she’s been staying with us.”

“No disrespect for the dead meant, but Titus will be glad to hear it—he’s
been like a bear with a sore head ever since laying eyes on that woman.” Jack squinted in the sunlight. “Is Jim wearing Sally’s cloak?”

“It’s a long story…” Anne slipped from Jack’s lap to sit beside him. “It seems everything went awry when you shipped off.”

Jack took up the reins and, wrapping his arm about Anne’s shoulder, pulled her close. “Well, darling girl, I’m back in the boat now, and together we will get it aright.”

Anne worked her needle quickly, adding a durable whipstitch to finish the seams on the uniform coats Jack procured as a portion of his pay for the use of wagons and beasts. She tied off with a knot and bit the thread. “Sally, can I bother you for the seam ripper?”

“Mm-hmm…”

Sitting beside Anne on a bench drawn close to the fire for good light, Sally set aside the shirt she was stitching for Brian, and delved into the mending basket at her feet. The petticoat sacrificed for the boy’s new shirts was donated by Pink, very fine quilted flannel in a soft shade of sky blue.

“Here ye go…” Sally tossed the ripper onto Anne’s lap.

Anne set to work cutting the shiny pewter buttons off the coat.
A real shame…
She thought the buttons rather pretty—embossed with a stylized sunburst and the tiniest “3G” in the center—but as the boys refused to even consider wearing them, she added them to the pile on the hearth, where Brian and Jim were melting them down in the ladle Jack used for making lead ball.

“This coat is ready for the blue!” Anne eased the fabric into the dye pot. She’d paid General Washington’s cook two pennies for eight pieces of the dark blue paper that loaves of shop sugar come wrapped in, and Pink used the paper to cook up a rich indigo color. The coats Jack salvaged were meant for drummer boys in the British 3rd Regiment of Foot, and were made of white wool with blue facings and cuffs. She was optimistic the fabric would take the dye well.

“Those shirts will be a nice match,” Anne said as she used a piece
of kindling to poke away air pockets floating the fabric up to the surface.

Sally reached out with her foot and gave Brian a little nudge in the ribs. “Hear that? We’ll bring out the blue in yer eyes, lads, and ye’ll have t’ beat th’ young lassies off with yer drumsticks.”

The boys were taking turns pouring molten pewter into the buttonmold David lent them. “Have a look…” Brian went to show Anne one of the finished buttons, cast complete with a shank and the entwined letters “USA” embossed on the face.

“How nice!” Anne said, holding the button to light. “Make enough so we can stitch a few inside your facings, for spares.”

The door bar banged up, and Jack, Titus, and Pink swooped in with a blast of cold air. Jack held a rolled-up piece of leather over his head, a rare commodity in a camp of shoeless soldiers, and announced, “We got a whole half hide!”

“From the Oneidans?” Sally asked.

“Yep.” Jack unfurled the leather and tossed it down onto the floor. “I knew one of ’em had to have some tucked away—and he couldn’t resist Titus’s offer.”

“I drove a good bargain,” Titus said, setting a corked earthenware jug on the tabletop. “Traded for the hide, this jug of maple syrup, and a trifle for Miss Pink.”

“It’s no trifle!” Pink shed her cloak and showed Anne and Sally the silver brooch she had pinned to the top edge of her stays. “See? Two hearts twined together.”

“Gweeshtie! A luckenbooth brooch!” Sally wagged her brows.

Pink traced the two silver hearts with the tip of her finger. “I never had anything so pretty.”

“It’s a beautiful brooch.” Anne caught Titus’s eye. He flashed a grin and shrugged.

Jack hung up his coat and plunked down on the bench beside Anne. “Not a bad trade for an old hat picked up on the battlefield.”

“Your Hessian hat?” Jim looked worried.

Titus pulled the other bench closer to the fire and he reached over to
scrub Jim’s noggin with his knuckles. “Don’t fret, little brother. I never cared much for that hat. Too many geegaws and fiddle-dee-dums on it to suit my taste.”

Anne contained her laugh. For all the years she’d known him, Titus’s penchant for ostentatious hats had never wavered.
Until these boys needed shoes…

“Make way… I need t’ tend t’ my stew.” Pink shooed the boys and the button-making operation to the end of the hearth, and put her spoon to work stirring the pot of rabbit stew she had bubbling on the grate.

“Smells real good,” Titus said, as he fished his moccasin-making tools from his pack.

“Have a taste…” With hand cupped under the bowl of the spoon, Pink delicately fed Titus a mouthful, dabbing at a slight dribble on his chin with the corner of her apron.

Sally leaned in and whispered, “Our Titus is fair smitten.”

Anne nudged Jack and muttered, “I’d say Pink has Titus on her line.”

“Him?” Jack snorted. “He’s hooked, and flopping around in the boat.”

Anne threaded her needle, watching Brian stand on the hide with feet an inch apart as Titus traced the outlines with a chunk of charcoal. He stood and studied the leather for a moment, then declared, “I will just barely squeeze four moccasins out of this elk skin.”

Pink sidled up and rested a hand on Titus’s broad shoulder. “I’ve been thinking about makin’ some cornmeal dumplin’s for the stew.”

“Dumplin’s!” Titus slipped his arm about Pink’s waist and gave her a squeeze. “I haven’t had cornmeal dumplin’s since I was a barefoot boy running the hills in Virginia.”

“How sweet are they?” Anne gave Jack a nudge. “Happy’s the wooing that’s not long a-doing.”

Titus Gilmore was her oldest friend, and, together with Sally, they shared the memory of life under Peter Merrick’s harsh rule. Titus was there to welcome her to her new home on her wedding day. Titus congratulated her the day her baby was born. He sat vigil with her the
night her son died, and was at her side when Jemmy was buried. Titus’s hand ran her press when she was too grief-stricken to even swing legs from bed, and Titus never hesitated to put his own life at risk to help save Jack from the gallows.

“You see?” Anne whispered in Jack’s ear. “They can’t keep their hands off each other…”

Taking Anne by the hand, Jack said, “You know, my coat has a hole in the pocket… Come on, I’ll show you.”

“Why do I have to go to the coat?” Anne complained, trotting along with him to the far corner where his coat hung on a peg. “I can’t see anything in this light, much less a hole in a pocket…”

Gripping her hand tight, Jack pulled her behind the blanket hung to provide a modicum of privacy for the chamber pot, and pressed her up against the wall.

“I can’t keep my hands from
you
,” he whispered gruffly in her ear.

And Anne was swept into a kiss—the set-her-heart-racing sort of kiss so absent since they’d arrived at the encampment—the deep, hungry kind of kiss that made her leg rise up, and pull him close.

Jack groaned, pushing aside her shawl, nuzzling her neck, the two-day stubble on his cheeks scratching the soft mounds spilling up over her stays. He reached down and his hand found the way through layers of wool and flannel petticoats to the place between her legs.

A soft “Ohhh!” puffed out from her lips. Eyes squeezed tight, Anne clung to Jack’s shoulders, and struggled to stifle her moan.

“I need the piss pot.”

Eyes popped open, Anne could see young Jim, peeking around the edge of the curtain he’d pulled slightly aside.

Jack barked over his shoulder, “What?”

Jim blinked. “I
really
need the piss pot.”

Anne pushed Jack away, breathing hard, and, with downcast eyes, she straightened her skirts.

“No.” Jack tugged the curtain closed, and added, “Go find a tree.”

Jim’s stockinged feet were dancing beneath the bottom edge of the curtain. “Annie tolt us we catch the devil if we set foot out the door while under quarantine—”

“
I did.” Anne nodded. “I did tell him that.”

Jim whined, “Would you have me piss my only pair of britches?”

“All right, use the piss pot.” Jack thrust the curtain aside, and stomped away. Anne slipped out behind him, and Jim scampered behind the curtain, unbuttoning his britches. A moment later his stream was singing its way into the tin bucket.

Anne followed after Jack, hurrying across the room, suffering the smirks and giggles of their fellows at the fire.

“Goddamn it…” Jack flopped down to sit on Anne’s bunk, chin in hands, his face a dark storm cloud. “A man can’t even find a moment alone in the privy around here.”

“You wouldn’t be as rankled if Jim busted in on you
alone
,” Titus pointed out.

“Set the piss pot outside the curtain next time,” Brian chided. “That’s how Titus does when he and Pink cuddle behind the curtain.”

Dark brows met in two angry furrows, Jack announced with a wild wave of his arm, “This is why I’ll never join the regular army!”

“You’re not the only one who suffers, Jack Hampton,” Sally said. “And all yer whining doesna change a thing.”

Sitting beside Jack, Anne brushed the loose hair from his face, saying, “It’s hard for me, too…”

“Not anymore it isn’t,” Sally called over her shoulder. Titus, Pink, and Brian all burst out laughing. Though the color rushed to her cheeks, Anne was happy to see Sally’s ribaldry had eased Jack’s clenched-jaw anger, and he, too, laughed along.

Swinging his legs up to lie flat on his back, Jack pulled Anne to lie beside him. He kissed the top of her hand and whispered, “We had more privacy living among the enemy than we find here in this camp. I miss those nights when I would scale the wall to your garret room… I want for us to have a night like that.”

A sharp blast of wind whistled in through a gap between the logs, knocking a dried chunk of mud and moss chinking onto the bed. “That’s a bad draft.” Jack turned to rise up on his elbow, and began fiddling with the loose pieces to puzzle the chinking back into place.

Anne whispered to his back, “You know what I want? I want a home and hearth of our own…”

“You already have a home.”

“This isn’t a home.”

Jack looked over his shoulder. “I meant the Cup and Quill—once we drive the British out, we can get married, move back to New York, set up shop, and get to work making a host of new Hamptons.”

“Drive the British out!” Anne snorted. “You’re measuring the cloth when the web isn’t even on the loom.”

“Ah, now, Annie…” Successful in plugging the draft, Jack laid back, lacing an arm around her shoulders. “You know there’s talk of the French joining in the fight, and as bleak as it’s been, there’s still good hope for our cause.”

“I don’t care about the French. I’m tired of living no better than a tinker. I want a proper home with a husband in my bed, and children of our own to care for.” Anne stared at the bed boards overhead, and whispered aloud the question so heavy on her mind the past weeks. “Haven’t we done enough for the cause?”

“It’s not something I can measure for you, Annie, but I’m in this thing whole heart to the end, no matter how bitter or sweet.” Jack pulled her hand and pressed it to his chest. “I’d have you by my side, for it… but if you want, I suppose you could go back to Peekskill…”