The Body In The Bog (16 page)

Two shots were fired in the air—the alarm guns. The alarm bell fell silent. Gus turned to Brad Hallowell and ordered him to start drumming. “Men, we are going to muster on the green,” the captain called out.

Although she had seen it before, Faith was caught up in the drama, and the crowd pressing against the ropes a few feet away seemed not to exist. Ben's hand was in hers, warm and warming. She was vaguely aware how cold she was, her breath a cloud. She wished she knew where the Millers were. The shots had startled her.

“Watch closely,” she told her son. “Everything happens very fast.” All these spectators, some from far away—and it would be over in a flash. A flash and puffs of smoke. But at the moment, Gus was calling the roll—slowly, dramatically, drawing out each name. He stood before the rude band and one by one they answered.

The British drums could now be heard, approaching from farther down Battle Road, its name later changed to Main Street. Inexorable. The drums were terrifying. Gus ordered his men to march to the far end of the green and form two lines. “Load and stand ready,” he ordered. He was born to lead, Faith thought. Standing straight as a ramrod himself, he was not wearing the rough clothes of the farmer he'd been, but Captain Sewall's bright blue militia uni
form. Sewall and Deane, centuries apart, yet with this curious link. Faith had a sense that they were both men you'd want on your side.

Now the sky was pale yellow at the horizon, the color of a good Chablis, and faintly blue above. The Minutemen were saying their lines, all documented.

“There's so few of us, it's folly to stand here.”

“Easy. Stand your ground.”

The British appeared, transformed from the doughnut-eating crew of an hour ago into an efficient war machine. Their bayonets glittered. They reached the green. Their red coats—bloodred coats—were a splash of color against the grass, glistening with dew. Marching all night through unfamiliar terrain in 1775, the Regulars had been fatigued, wet, hungry—and frightened. Numbers of the size of the forces on both sides had been greatly inflated.

“Disperse, you damn rebels! Disperse!”

“Go back to Boston!”

The Minutemen stood their ground. A rude band, but not untrained, Faith had learned. Many had fought in the French and Indian Wars. They were dressed as the farmers and artisans they were, but they kept their weapons cleaned and knew how to shoot. The drums kept beating. For a moment, time stood still. There was indecision on both sides. Then the shot rang out.

No one knows who fired first. It may not even have been someone on the green. One recent theory attributes it to a restless Aleford teenager crouched behind one of the nearby stone walls. An accident? Deliberate? Whatever the motive, it caused the green to ex
plode in a barrage of noise and smoke. Ben put his hands over his ears. The smell of black powder filled the air.

“Disperse! Disperse!” Gus ordered, and the men fled, leaving two fallen from their line. The British pursued relentlessly. Faith closed her eyes as the all-too-realistic reenactment of the use of a bayonet occurred in front of her. The smoke was so thick, it was hard to pick out anyone. Men were screaming in pain and terror. The British commander frantically ordered his troops to stop, but, out of control, they continued to attack the damned rebels. Finally, the drum sounded. They had been trained to obey it instantly: the carnage was arrested. Slowly, they marched off the Common and down the road to Concord, accompanied by the drums. It would be a long day, and when they returned, they would face double the number who had gathered on the green, a force that would exact its price, shooting at the easy red targets from the woods, behind stone walls, their houses.

Now it was Patience's turn, and she rushed onto the green with the others. At first she couldn't see through the thick smoke; then as it began to lift, carried by the breeze, she located Tom. He was bending down next to Nelson. Faith ran faster.

The man Nelson Batcheldor played wasn't supposed to be injured.

“Get the EMTs over here,” Tom screamed. “We need help! Someone's been hurt!” He had rolled Nelson on his back and was starting mouth-to-mouth.

The unknown Minuteman was speaking into his phone. Sirens abruptly dragged the scene into the twentieth century and real panic set in.

“Someone's been shot for real!” Faith heard a spectator shout. “A ramrod, it was a ramrod!” People began to run away. She knelt next to Tom. There was no blood. Nelson hadn't been wounded. His eyes were closed and his skin had a deathly pallor.

Charley MacIsaac got on the public-address system, which normally would have been used at this point to talk about the day's upcoming events.

“One of our company has been taken ill. There is no cause for alarm. Please, everyone stay where you are so we can provide medical attention. The program will proceed in a few minutes.”

“Taken ill”? Nelson wasn't ill. He was scarcely breathing. It appeared that, like his wife, Nelson had been murdered.

“I'm going with him. Go home and stay there. I'll call you.” Tom sounded frantic.

“How could this have happened? No one has left his side!” Faith suddenly remembered Ben next to her and pulled him close. “Sweetie, Mr. Batcheldor is sick and Daddy's going with him to the hospital. We're going to go home, but first I want to find the Millers and ask them to have breakfast with us.” She willed herself to stay calm. Her voice sounded like someone else's—someone who spoke very deliberately. Charley was still instructing the crowd to stay put, but people continued to press forward to leave.

“What about the pancake breakfast. I thought there was a pancake breakfast.” Ben's lower lip quivered. Patriots' Day wasn't turning out the way he expected.

“We'll have our own pancake breakfast. Now help me find them. See if you can spot Samantha.” Ben adored Samantha and brightened at the thought of breakfast with her.

Faith turned away as the EMTs rushed Nelson off the green, Tom close behind. Nelson—was he the intended victim, or did the poison-pen writer plan to pick them all off, one by one? She had to find Pix.

The Millers were by the large oak near the Centennial Monument, obeying Charley's request. Dale Warren was saying something into his two-way radio.

Pix ran toward her. “What's happened, Faith? What did Charley mean? Who's sick? Dale doesn't seem to know anything.”

“It's Nelson.” Faith fumbled for words. What could she say? She didn't want to alarm her friend, but she wanted her to get the hell out of here. “He may be gravely injured, and it may be the letter writer, although I don't see how. You've got to leave here immediately. Tom went with Nelson in the ambulance and he's going to call when he knows what's happened. Please”—she reached for Pix's arm—“I think you should come to my house, all of you, and stay there for a while.”

Sam agreed, but Pix protested, “We said we would help at the breakfast.”

“These are unusual circumstances. People will understand.”

Dale Warren decided things. He'd put the radio back in his belt. “Chief MacIsaac says you're to go home and stay there. The Fairchilds' will be all right, too, I guess. Anyways, he wants you off the green.”

Pix gave in. Her face had grown pale. Samantha held one of her hands; Sam grasped the other. “This can't be real,” Pix said to no one in particular.

Danny and Ben were running ahead. Faith lost sight of them in the crowd and rushed the others forward.

“You must stay where I can see you!” she said to the two boys angrily, driven by fear.

They looked sheepish and slowed down. Danny was wearing a tricorne hat, as was Ben. Both carried flags. Patriots' Day. This modern-day reenactment was fast becoming the nightmare it had actually been in 1775.

Back at the parsonage, Amy was still asleep. So was Mrs. Hart.

“Was it a good one?” she asked, sitting up at the sound of their entrance. “A big turnout? No surprises, I expect. We still lost this round, eh?” She laughed.

“Yes, we lost,” Faith said soberly.

“Never a peep out of the little angel, and unless you need me, I'll go over to help my sister at the DAR breakfast.”

Faith thanked her and headed into the kitchen to make her own pancakes. Sam, Pix, and Dale Warren were sitting silently at the Fairchild's large round table. Samantha, Danny, and Ben were in a small room off the kitchen, watching an instant replay on the local cable channel. Faith went in, drawn by the noise of the battle.

Reaching into his pocket, Danny gave Ben one of the pieces of paper that held the powder charges. At the end of the battle, children always rushed onto the grass to pick these up. Ben smelled it. “I didn't like the guns,” he said. “They made too much noise. But I wasn't scared. My sister would be scared, but I wasn't.”

Faith looked at the screen. The whole thing had been filmed. Would they have captured the moment when Nelson fell and how? She came out and told Dale, who immediately called the police station to have someone get a copy of the tape.

Soon the house was filled with the smell of pancakes on the griddle. The mood lightened. The kids joined them around the table.

“These are delicious! What kind are they?” Sam asked, starting in on a stack.

“I don't know exactly,” Faith said. “I just threw some things together, but I'll call them Patriots' Day Pancakes. They've got sour cream in them and that's white, the blueberries are blue, of course, and the raspberries, red.” She had mixed the two berries together since she didn't have enough of each. She took a bite, although she didn't have much of an appetite. Thoughts of whether Nelson was still alive had dulled it—plus, she'd already had one breakfast. The pancakes were good. She ate some more.

Then they waited. Pix was uncharacteristically restless.

“Couldn't we call the hospital?”

“I doubt they'd give us any information. Especially considering the circumstances.”

“Can't you call, Dale?” Pix had been his sister's room mother in fifth grade and she thought the young man ought to be able to find something out, given his position.

He shook his head. “I couldn't tell you anyway, unless the chief said so. The last thing he told me was he'd be in touch and only to call if there was an emergency.”

A grim reminder, and everyone in the room felt it.

From upstairs, Amy started crying. She was awake and hungry.

It was seven o' clock.

Faith felt as if it should be at least the afternoon and Amy rising from her nap. The hours since they'd first left the house were moving as slowly as the thick maple syrup that the kids coaxed from the jug for their pancakes.

At nine, the phone rang. Faith picked up before the second ring.

“Tom? Is he alive? What's happened?”

But it wasn't Tom; it was Millicent.

“And how are you, Faith? I understand Pix is at your house and I'd like a word with her, if it's not too much trouble.” Her tone clearly indicated she did not think much of Faith's telephone manners.

“Of course, I'll get her right away.” Faith was tempted to explain, yet it wouldn't make any difference. Yes, this was a crisis, but that was no excuse for letting standards slip.

Pix went to the phone. “Probably wants to yell at me for not being at the breakfast,” she whispered to Faith.

“She'd better not,” Faith replied. At the moment, she deeply wished Millicent had never asked Pix—or any of the rest of them—to sign that letter. Had never started POW! So what if Joey Madsen wanted to put up a bunch of big houses?

She went into the living room. Dale was reading the latest issue of
New York
magazine with the appearance of someone who's bought one of the periodicals Patriot Drug kept behind the counter. Sam was giving a good performance of reading today's paper, but he was still on the page he'd been on when Faith left the room. He put the paper down. Faith had stopped offering food or coffee an hour ago. Nobody wanted anything—except for the day to be over. Samantha had taken charge of Amy and Ben. She was one of those teenagers who actually liked small children, moving straight from her horse phase to babies. They were in the kitchen, drawing on large sheets of shelf paper. Danny was watching the Boston Marathon on TV.

“What do you think our friend Millicent wants with my wife?”

“And badly enough to track her down here, although that would be child's play for Millicent. But I have no idea. The two are involved in just about every activity in town, so it could be POW! business or the Garden Club plant sale. Or Pix could be right and Millicent is calling her on the carpet because you didn't show up to help at the breakfast.”

“They couldn't have had much of a turnout. People were leaving town as fast as they could,” Sam commented.

Their speculation was stopped by Pix's return. She was laughing.

“She's under house arrest, too, or whatever you call this. Charley won't let her do anything in public today and she's furious. She wanted my support to complain to the police. I think she's planning to call the Middlesex County DA's office to register a formal complaint.”

“Protective custody,” Dale piped up, “That's what I'd call it.” He returned to his magazine.

“In a way, I don't blame her,” Pix continued. “Not that I'm leaving the premises, but Millicent works all year on this day. I think they should at least let her review the parade. That's her favorite part.”

Every year, Millicent, town officials, and other favored individuals—the closest egalitarian Aleford got to royalty—sat on a specially constructed platform near the green and watched the parade pass by, awarding the prizes for best float, best band, and so forth. Sat high up, out in the open. With hundreds of people strolling around below, cotton candy and fried dough in hand. But there might be a hand holding something else. Faith shivered. She was with Charley. She didn't want Millicent to put one foot out of her clapboard house. She fleetingly wondered what Millicent's bodyguard was doing. Probably helping her wind wool.