My Brother Sam is Dead (6 page)

Somebody began to shout. The shouting was coming from inside the tavern. I darted across the barnyard and slipped into the kitchen. The door to the taproom was mostly closed, but there was a crack where it was hinged onto the wall. The shouting went on. I tiptoed to the door and put my eye to the crack.

Mother was standing up against the fireplace wall. There was a man in front of her, holding a rifle sideways to keep her from getting away. Two other soldiers had hold of Father from the back, twisting his arms behind him so that he couldn't move. The officer in charge stood in front of him with a sword. “We know you have a weapon, Meeker. Where is it?” he shouted. He jabbed the sword forward as if he was going to stick it into Father, and at the same time the men holding Father gave him a jerk. I began to shake and shiver, and I thought I would run someplace to get help, but then I realized there wasn't any help. Probably the Patriots were trying to get the guns away from all the Tories.

“I don't have it anymore,” Father shouted. “My loyal son Samuel stole it to go play soldier boy.”

The officer laughed. “Come now, I'm not going to believe that story. You're all Tories here. We want your gun.” He jabbed the sword again at Father's stomach.

“Believe it or not as you like,” Father said. “What do you intend to do, run me through with that sword and leave my wife and child to fend for themselves?”

“I will if you don't give up your weapon.” He jabbed again with the sword. “We know you have one. We know where all the Tory weapons in Redding are. Not everybody is willing to play the dog to the King.”

My father spit. “There are traitors everywhere,” he shouted.

“Watch your tongue or I'll slice it out.”

Oh, it scared me to hear Father yell at the Rebel officer. I wanted him just to be quiet and not make a fuss; to beg, even. It made me realize where Sam got his rebelliousness from, though. Father didn't like anybody to tell him what to do anymore than Sam did. “Oh, Father,” I whispered to myself, “please don't talk back.”

And I guess Father realized that he ought to be more quiet, because he got a grip on himself and said calmly, “I'm telling you the truth, my son ran off to join your army and took my gun. We have no weapons here but butcher knives.”

The officer looked at Father, considering. Finally he said, “I don't believe you.” He raised the sword. I gasped and the officer whipped the flat side of the blade across Father's face. My mother shrieked, Father cursed, and a thin line of blood appeared on his cheek and upper lip. I knew what I had to do. I ducked out of the kitchen, dashed across the barnyard and began to run through the pastures toward Colonel Read's house. There was one person who knew what had happened to Father's Brown Bess, and he was up at Tom Warrups'.

Oh, I was scared. The war had finally come to Redding, and it was terrible. I guessed pretty easily what was happening. Because Redding had such a reputation for being a Tory town, the Rebels had decided to disarm it—at least disarm the Tories. Partly it was to get guns for themselves—everybody knew that the Rebels didn't have enough of anything, guns included. And part of the idea was to make sure that Redding Tories wouldn't be able to do to the Continentals what the Minutemen had done to the British at Concord and Lexington six months earlier. And I knew the Rebels weren't just playing; they'd kill Father if they wanted to.

So I ran uphill and down, clambering over the stone and rail fences that divided the pastures. My lungs began to burn and even though it was cold, my face was soaked with sweat. But I didn't dare stop to rest; all I could see in front of me was that Rebel officer pushing a sword through Father's stomach. So I ran on, my breath roaring in my mouth and my legs getting so weak and trembly that a few times I almost stumbled.

Then I saw Tom Warrups' shack and I stopped running. There was a tiny trickle of smoke drifting up from the chimney, which I could hardly see against the grey sky. I slipped quietly around to the door. The blanket was hanging across it. I pushed it a little aside and peered in. The fire in the circle of stones was practically out, but there was enough light so I could see that there was nobody in the hut but Sam. He was lying on Tom Warrups' frame bed on his stomach, with a deerskin rug over him. I could hear him softly breathe and see his back go up and down. I guessed he must have walked a long way to get to Redding and was tired. He was a pretty good sleeper, anyway; I'd slept with him all my life and I knew that he was hard to wake up, even if you punched him.

I crept into the hut, leaving the blanket hanging over the door in case somebody should walk by, and knelt down by the bed. I was sorry to wake him up, knowing how tired he must be. I put my hand on the bed to shake it; and suddenly I realized I was touching something funny. I felt along the edge of the bed. There was something hard and long under the blanket. I put my hand under the blanket to feel it better, but already I knew it was the Brown Bess. I guess Sam had got into the habit of sleeping with it so nobody would steal it. He was lying with his arm across it, with the blanket over top of both.

Carefully I slid my hand down the barrel until I got to the stock, gripped it, and gave it a little pull. Sam snorted in his sleep and shook his head as if he were trying to shake a fly off his face. But he didn't wake up. I gave the gun another little pull. This time he began to talk loudly, but the words came out nonsense, and I couldn't make them out.

I let go of the gun and took my hand out from underneath the blanket, trying to think what to do next. Sam was pretty tired, and being a good sleeper, I figured I might be able to move his arm without waking him up. When we used to sleep together plenty of times he'd thrown his arm or his leg over me in his sleep, and I'd have to grunt and heave to get myself untangled from him, and he'd never wake up. I decided to take a chance. I flipped the blanket back a little until his arm and the Brown Bess were uncovered. Then I quickly bent his arm away so it wasn't lying across the gun anymore. He snorted again, but he
didn't wake up. I picked up the gun, ducked through the door of the shack just pushing the blanket away with my head. When I got outside I began running across the snow-covered pastures as fast as I could go, praying that I'd get back before anything happened. Ahead of me, as far as I could see was a trail of my own footprints in the snow, drawn like a line across the fields and fences that divided them up.

I was so worried and scared that I didn't even hear Sam coming until I was across Read's pasture and climbing over a stone wall at the other side. As I slid over the wall, I first heard the heavy thump-thump of running feet. I looked back. Sam was down at the bottom of the pasture about a hundred yards away, charging up at me as fast as he could come. He saw me look at him, but he didn't shout, for fear that somebody would hear him.

I leaped over the wall and began running on as fast as I could, but I knew it was hopeless. Sam was bigger and stronger and faster than me. I looked back again. Sam was coming up to the stone wall. He didn't bother to climb it, he just cleared it in one jump and came running on. I turned and swung down to the left in the direction of the road. I didn't think Sam would follow me there for fear of being seen. I tried to pray, but I couldn't think of any right words and all I could do was whisper over my gasping breath, “Oh please, God, oh please, God.”

And then Sam was ten yards behind me. “Timmy,” he said in a whispery shout. “For God's sake, Tim, give me that before you hurt yourself.”

I swiveled around to face him. He lunged at me, grabbing for the muzzle of the gun. He got a couple of fingers on it, but I jerked it out of his grip. He cursed, and stuck his fingers in his mouth, and I could see he'd got a little gash from the bayonet clip when I jerked it out of his fingers. I leveled the Brown Bess at his stomach and I said, “Don't come any closer, Sam, or I'll shoot you.”

I couldn't even hold the gun right. It was too long and too heavy for me to hold against my shoulder the way you're supposed to. I had to hold it against my hip with one hand on the trigger and the other wrapped around the barrel. I knew that if I fired it I'd be knocked
flat, but I didn't care.

Sam stared at me. “Timmy.”

“Don't move, Sam.”

“It isn't loaded, Tim.”

“You're a liar.”

He started to step toward me. “Stand back, Sam, or I'll shoot you in the stomach.” Suddenly I began to cry, not just little tears but big sobs all mixed up with trying to get my breath. I felt ashamed of crying in front of Sam, and embarrassed, but it was all so terrible I couldn't stop.

“Timmy, don't be crazy. It isn't loaded. Now give it to me before it gets damaged.”

“Jesus, Sam, Jesus, they're down there and they're going to kill Father if he doesn't give them the Brown Bess.”

“Who? Who's down there?”

“Some Continentals, with some others from Fairfield.”

Then he lunged. I never knew whether I would have pulled the trigger because the next thing I was lying on the ground with Sam on top of me, and he'd got the gun. My fingers hurt, and when I looked at them I saw that they were bleeding, too, where they'd got ripped out of the trigger guard. Sam's face was dead white. “You would have shot me, you little pig, wouldn't you?” He got up off me, and I sat up. “Are you all right?” he said.

I jumped up. “I wouldn't tell you if I wasn't, you son of a bitch. By this time they've probably killed Father.'

“Timmy, I can't go down there.”

“Why not? They're supposed to be your friends.”

“I can't, Timmy, I'm not supposed to be here.”

“What do you mean you're not supposed to be here?”

“I'm supposed to be in Danbury buying cattle. They sent me down from Cambridge with Captain Champion, the commissary officer because I'm from around here.”

“Did you run away?”

“I didn't desert, I just came home for a couple of days. Captain Champion had to go over to Waterbury for something so I decided to slip home for a day or so.”

“To see Betsy Read.”

“All right, so what?” Sam said.

“Won't you get in trouble?”

“They won't catch me,” Sam said. “People are always sneaking off home for a few days; the officers don't know where half the men are a lot of the time. If they come around looking for you, one of your friends says you sprained your ankle and you're coming along behind.”

“Sam, I'm scared about Father. Let's not stand here talking.”

He looked sort of uneasy. “He's probably all right. They've been disarming Tories in lots of places. It's orders from the Connecticut General Assembly. You don't think they're going to let the Tories keep their guns, do you?”

“What'll they do to Father?”

“Oh, probably just push him around a little. They don't shoot people.”

“I saw him, Sam, he was going to stick his sword into Father. You
have
to go down, Sam, you have to.”

“I can't, Tim. They might hang me for a deserter if they found out.”

“All right then, let me take the gun home and give it to them.”

“I can't do that, Tim. If I go back to camp without my weapon, they'll surely hang me.”

I thought about that. “Oh God, Sam, what did you have to fight for? Why didn't you stay in college?”

“I couldn't, Tim. How could I not go when all of my friends were going?”

I understood that, but I wasn't going to give in. “Your family ought to be more important than your friends.”

He looked embarrassed, but he didn't say anything.

“I think you're a coward,” I said. I didn't really think that—anybody who joined the army to fight couldn't be a coward, but I was still angry at him.

“No, I'm not,” he said.

To tell the truth, it was me who was being the coward. Now that I'd got calmed down a little, I was afraid of what I might find
when I went home. Suppose I walked in and found Father lying on the floor with a hole in his stomach bleeding to death, and maybe Mother dead, too. “All right, Sam, if you're not a coward, come home with me and see if everything is all right.”

He thought about it. “I'll go as far as the barn with you.” Swiftly he loaded up the Brown Bess, with powder from the horn slung around his neck and pouch of shot he had dangling from his belt, and rammed it home with a ramrod.

It impressed me, the casual easy way he did it. “Did you ever kill anybody, Sam?”

He looked embarrassed again. “We haven't done any fighting yet.”

We set off across the snow fields, uphill and down, the way I'd come. Sam set a pretty good pace. He was hard and strong and used to it, from all the marching he'd done, and I had a hard time keeping up; but I was glad to go fast because I was so worried about Father. In fifteen minutes we came to our road, crossed it, and circled around back of the house. We ducked into the barn and stared at the tavern. There was smoke coming out of the chimney, but that was all—no sounds, no sign of men, no horses.

“Nothing happening,” Sam said.

“Come on in with me and see,” I said.

“It's risky, Tim.”

“There's nobody around,” I said.

He stared at me. We both knew it was his job to go in because he was the older brother. “All right,” he said. “Let's go.”

We darted across the barnyard and into the kitchen, and all of a sudden there was Father standing there, the line of blood drying on his face. He and Sam stood five feet apart, staring at each other. Then Sam turned and ran. “Sam,” Father shouted. “Come back, Sam.”

But Sam raced across the barnyard and then began pounding over the snowy field toward the woodlot, the Brown Bess under his arm. Father and I ran out into the barnyard and watched him go. Father knew he couldn't catch Sam. We watched him until he got to the stone wall at the edge of our pasture. He jumped up on it and stood there looking back at us. Then suddenly he waved, jumped down from the
wall, and disappeared into the woodlot.