Woods Runner (12 page)

Right then the world ashore went berserk. A gunshot, another; lighted torches could be seen in the vicinity of the sugar mill, carried every which way.

“You didn’t,” Abner said, “hit him hard enough.”

“I thought I killed him!”

“He raised the alarm.”

“It matters not at all,” Matthew said. “We’re away from the light. Torches won’t cast out here. Besides, they’re looking in all directions.”

“A passel of other men came out at the same time. They went all over.” Abner sighed and leaned back, resting. “It was good fortune.”

“Fortune favors the well prepared,” Matthew said. He stood from the bucket, where he was sitting, and took out a package wrapped in cloth. “Emily sent beef sandwiches and milk mixed with rum.”

“Rum?” Samuel asked. “Milk and rum?”

“Heats the blood, makes the food go in better. It’s not for you, but your father. Here, hand it in the cabin. Tell him to eat slow or he’ll lose it.”

Samuel took the package and moved into the cabin. If possible it was darker inside than it was outside.

“Mother? Father?”

“Here,” his mother said, and he felt a hand on his arm. “Father is next to me.”

“I’m here,” his father said. “Samuel—I am so thankful to see you.” Small laugh. “Well, I can’t see you at all. My son, I never dreamed you were still alive, much less that you would win me my freedom in this bold manner.” His voice was faint.

“Hold your hand out.” Samuel fumbled in the package and pulled out a sandwich. “Matthew brought food.”

He held a sandwich out in the void, felt a hand grasp it. He heard his father wolfing it. “Eat slow, or Matthew says you’ll lose it.” He fished a small lidded crock out of the package. “Here’s some warm milk mixed with rum. He says it will make the food go down better.”

The chewing slowed as he held the crock out in the darkness, felt his mother’s hand take it. “Here,” she said, “I’ve got it. Samuel, who are these men? We owe them so much and we don’t even know them.”

“They’re friends—Abner and Matthew. Matthew owns the boat. We met Abner on the way. We—oh, yes, you have a daughter.”

“What?”

“You’ll meet her when we get to the wagon. Her name is Annie. She … well, she needs us. It’s been part of this run.” He took a few moments to tell them the part about Annie, without too many details of the Hessian attack. It was too terrible to describe.

“Then she’s our daughter,” his mother said in a firm voice. “From now on, as good as blood.”

His father stopped chewing, swallowed, drank some of the rum-and-milk mixture. “Food. Food. When you haven’t had it for a while, it tastes as sweet as anything you’ve ever eaten. Tell Mr. Matthew thank you.”

“You’re very welcome,” Matthew said from the tiller, which was only six feet away. “I’ll tell Emily you like her food.”

“Like it? It’s life itself.”

“Aye.”

“I feel guilty, though,” Samuel’s father whispered. “So many men in that shed, in other sheds. Starving. And I get food.”

“It is the way of it,” Abner put in from the darkness, “of war. Some get, some don’t, some live, some … don’t. It’s the way of it.”

“It’s bad.”

“Yes. It is. But it is our lot now, and we must live it.” Abner sighed. “The best we know how.”

And with that, there was silence the rest of the way across the river, broken only by the lap of water on the side of the boat.

W
hen they reached the other side of the river and made their way to Abner’s wagon, Samuel found Annie asleep, curled up next to Abner’s collies.

“Annie.” He touched her shoulder to wake her.

She opened her eyes and threw herself into his arms. He staggered backward under her weight and turned to his parents.

“This is our Annie,” he said.

His mother reached out and stroked her hair. “Annie. I always wanted a little girl.”

“I had a ma,” Annie told her, “but then I didn’t.” She smiled shyly even as the tears welled in her eyes.

“And now you have a ma again,” Samuel’s mother whispered through her own tears.

“And a pa,” Samuel’s father said as he stepped next to her.

Abner cleared his throat and started to hook up the mules in the light of the slit lantern.

“No sentries this side of the river,” Matthew said. “Just stay to the main road north for a time.” He handed them a cloth bag. “Emily fixed food for you to take. Good fortune to all of you.”

“I don’t know how to thank you,” Samuel’s father said. “You men have given us back our lives, restored our family.”

“Help when you can,” Matthew said. “We all need to help. I will go back to the boat now and across the river again. There might be others I can reach before daylight.”

And he was gone, and with him the dim glow from the lantern.

“Here now,” Abner said. “Everybody inside the wagon except Samuel. Samuel, you come up and ride with me. We must talk.”

With his parents and Annie in the wagon, Samuel felt his way up to the front and climbed up in the seat. In near silence, Abner made a soft clucking sound with his tongue and the mules started pulling the wagon up the road. Even with the uproar across the river there was nothing moving on this side. They progressed in quiet for half an hour or so.

The mules, Samuel saw, had no trouble seeing the road in the darkness—were they like cats? Aside from a bump in a rut now and then, it was comfortable. The rain had let up a bit. Samuel’s rifle and powder were inside the wagon, covered, so he had no concern on that level.

“We cannot stay together,” Abner said suddenly.

“All right,” Samuel said, startled. “But why?”

“Too dangerous. If we were stopped before, I could say you were my grandchildren. Now, with your mother and father here, that won’t work. There would be questions and, with them, danger. I’m afraid we’d be taken prisoner, in spite of my passes. So we must separate.”

“I understand,” Samuel said, nodding, though in the darkness Abner could not see it. “You’ve already done enough—more than enough. I never thought I would see them again. And you have given them back. Well, thank you.”

“We all do what we can do. Now, here’s the lay of it. We go three more hours on this road. It will get light in four hours. We’ll be back in forest, or almost, at that time. Enough for you to have cover. You leave me then and take the forest straight west for two, maybe three hours—your father will be slow for a time.

“There you will come on a large swamp. Just before you get into it, turn left and go southwest toward Philadelphia. It’s safe there. You’ll be about seven days’ travel from town. Here, take this.” He handed Samuel something in the darkness, a small brass object like a watch. “A compass.”

“Don’t you need it?”

“Take it.”

“Thank you again.”

“Southwest,” Abner repeated. “Seven days’ walking, maybe eight. It’s near on ninety miles to Philadelphia and
you’ll find trails to help you along. As your father gets stronger you’ll move better.”

Samuel sat in silence, thinking.

“That’s the good news,” Abner said. “Now for the bad. Somewhere along there—nobody seems to know exactly where, although it was thought to be down in Trenton for a time—there will be a place where the British have a defensive line. You might not even know you’re going through it—but you may run into the redcoats. They’ll be a mite jumpy and will probably shoot before talking, so avoid them if you can. If you see them at all. Stay straight southwest, don’t fall toward the south over by the main road—that’s where they’ll be.”

Southwest. Samuel was silent, memorizing Abner’s instructions. Then he said, “Thank you. There aren’t words to—”

“I said that’s enough. Now, I don’t know what Matthew’s Emily put up for food, but try to get something with a lot of fat into your father. Fat is where the power is, red meat and fat. Maybe some raccoon or, if you can, a bear along the way. Thick meat. It’s going to be hard for him to walk ninety miles. Be patient.”

Again, Samuel nodded. “Yes. I will.”

“And with your mother, too. She’s very strong but this is different. They’re going to try to be your ma and pa, but for now, you have to be the leader. They don’t have the knowledge for what’s coming. You do. And one more thing: Take an extra blanket.”

And then silence, except for the sound of the mules clopping along, and their breathing.

They met no one, or at least didn’t see anybody in the pitch-darkness. After a time Samuel realized he could make out the white markings on the dogs. About then Abner pulled the mules to a stop.

“Out here,” he said. “Remember, west to the swamp and then southwest.”

“Yes. And again, thank—”

“Enough. Away.”

Samuel jumped off the wagon and went around to the back. In the dim light he motioned to them to get out. Annie came out of the back half-asleep. Samuel found the food, two bundles, and he gave one to his mother and the other to Annie. Next he tied a blanket to his bedroll and put it over his shoulder; then he located his rifle and powder horn, checked the priming in the quarter-light and found it to be good. As soon as he said, “All right,” Abner clucked at the mules and in a moment was gone in the morning mist.

“We didn’t get to say thank you,” his mother said.

“We can’t talk now,” Samuel said. “Later. Now we have to get moving. Are you all right to walk, Father?”

“Yes. Maybe a little slow. We’ll see.”

“Good. Follow me. And again, we can’t talk.”

He set off without really thinking. He’d been away from the woods and sitting in the wagon for days, out of his element. His body was sick of it, wanted to move, to
move
, and he took off at a near lope.

Annie held the pace, as she had when they’d been traveling together before, but within thirty yards his father gasped, “Samuel, I can’t….” His mother was out of breath and limping, but she didn’t complain and tried to help support his father.

Samuel slowed then, but he wanted to be well away from the road before stopping, so he kept them moving for over a mile. The sun was near enough to the horizon then to shed light everywhere, even through the clouds. He stopped in a small clearing, unrolled his bedroll and took out the moccasins he had made those days sitting in the wagon. “Father, try these on,” he whispered.

“Can we talk now?” his mother also whispered, but he shook his head.

“Not yet. Two more hours.” He continued whispering, “Annie, I will walk in front, you in the rear. If I stop, we all stop. Not a sound. If I go down, you all go down—again, not a sound. Annie, every forty or fifty paces you turn and listen with your hands cupped to your ears. If you hear something strange or that bothers you, whistle softly. Then we all stop. Is all that clear?”

“Yes—” his mother started, but he put a finger to her lips.

“We are still in danger, great danger. Please, for now just do as I say.”

She smiled at him and rested her hand on Annie’s shoulder. He turned to his father. “Can you hold a slow pace for two or three hours?”

His father nodded. “I’ll do it.”

“Then we go.”

Samuel started off, this time at a much slower pace, and as quietly as possible, moving along game trails when he found them, below the tops of ridges if there were any so they wouldn’t be silhouetted against the skyline. Stopping every forty or fifty paces for Annie—and Samuel—and to listen, to watch, to know, to
know
if anyone was following them.

His parents and Annie obeyed him and they moved, if not rapidly, at least steadily until Samuel looked down and saw water seeping into his footsteps. The edge of a swamp lay ahead of him.

He found another clearing on slightly higher and drier ground, and let everybody sit while he dug food out of one of the packages. It was slabs of venison—but with little fat—and corn dodgers: corn bread made into small muffins. They had some lard in them, but not much. He fed the others and pretended to eat, but put it back. There was still a long way to go and unless he killed something, they would need all the food they could save.

“All right.” He spoke low, almost in a whisper. “A short rest, just a few minutes. Then we start southwest. Ask questions now, but soft.”

“What happened to your head?” his father asked. “That scar?”

“I was hit with a tomahawk …,” he started, then
realized he’d have to tell the whole story. He did so, leaving out the worst parts.

“We saw you! We saw you!” his mother said. “On the other side of the clearing when the shooting started. It was too far away for us to know it was you, but we saw you when you shot. Did you … did you hit …”

He nodded. “I fired, he went down, the second one clubbed me and I went down. All very fast.”

Then he told of Cooper and the other volunteers who had helped him, leaving out the part about the man screaming for days. He worked past the rest of it—telling about Caleb and Ma, leaving out the Hessians—to the present.

“But how could you …,” his father started. “You’re thirteen!”

“We’ll have time for me to answer everything later. But now let me tell you what Abner said,” and he told of the British line they might have to cross, the possible danger, the situation in Philadelphia. When he was done he stood and picked up his rifle. “We go again now, all day if we can. Father?”

“If we go slowly I think it will be all right.”

“Drink as much water as you can from each stream. The water helps.” And he didn’t add that water keeps the stomach full and so less hungry. “Annie, you’re in back, me in front. No talking. A soft whistle.”

And he set out. He knew his father was weak but he worried that if they favored the weakness, it could get
worse. He kept the pace all day, checking the compass every few minutes. They stopped often to drink from the small streams and creeks—and there were many—with short, silent breaks every hour and a half or so, until it was early evening, and he saw his father weaving.