April Morning (12 page)

“The devil!”

“I don't say it's so. I say it could be so.”

“Then just inform me, Sergeant, why we don't take a torch to the whole dirty pile and burn it to the ground?”

“That's not for you and me to decide, Blythe. That is in the nature of policy.”

A third redcoat joined them, and said, “The Captain says to stand to parade on the common, Sergeant. We are marching.”

“Marching?”

“That's what the Captain said. Marching.”

“And without a wink of sleep.”

“I say it's a shame, and I don't care who hears that. There is enough feather bolsters in this town to bed downthe regiment.”

“I am merely communicating orders, Sergeant.”

The three of them walked out of my area of view, and then I heard the sound of bugles and the rattle of drums. Whether all the redcoats were marching, or whether it was only their regiment, with another regiment left to guard and search the town, I had no idea. But when I opened the door a few inches, it was clear as far as I could see, and I felt that this was my chance to get out of the trap of the smokehouse.

You might think that with my father dead, my own fear would have lessened; but it didn't work that way, and all I knew was that I was alone—and who would take care of me. or see for me now unless it was myself? When they spoke of burning the place, I saw myself trapped in the shed, roasting to death. I only wanted to get out of there and go where I might never see a redcoat again.

So, with the coast clear, I leaped out. Still hanging onto my gun, I raced across the back yard and garden of the house, down a little slope, and plunged into a fringe of woods there, never glancing behind me or even to the side, but only eager to find the cover of the brush. It was still too early in the season for bushes and underbrush to be in leaf and provide cover, and the skin of woods was only about thirty paces across. But just beyond it, there was a stone wall, and behind the stone wall, I would have shelter, with the open meadows as a place of retreat.

But no sooner had I plunged through the woods than I almost ran into two redcoats, who were making their way along the stone wall. When they saw me, one of them let out a cry for me to halt, and the other threw up his musket and fired. I wasn't more than twenty feet from him, so he might well have hit me if his piece had fired; but it flashed in the pan without taking in the chamber, and I sailed over that wall as if I had wings. Once in the open meadow, I had no fear that they could catch me. I had long legs, and many was the foot race I had won, but the redcoats were burdened by their heavy uniforms, their enormous muskets, and the big packs they wore on their backs. I stretched my legs and fled across that meadow as if the devil himself were after me—and I felt that way too—holding my speed for the quarter of a mile that separated me from the stone wall that bound the opposite side of the meadow. There, panting, exhausted, I fell across the wall into two arms that embraced me like a steel vise.

I clawed and twisted and struggled and tried in every way I knew to break that hold until I was brought back to sanity by a voice in my ear telling me:

“Easy, easy, easy, my lad. I have no desire to harm you. I only don't want you exploding that bird gun in my face out of your excitement. Excitement is a bad state for a body. Many a good man would be alive today, if he weren't dead from excitement. Now just take a good look at me. My name is Solomon Chandler, out of Lincoln Town, and I come across the meadows to see you running like a deer in flight. But them two redcoats you fled from, they are standing back there, and none too quick to come across the meadows a-hunt-ing us. Just look and see, and be calm.”

I relaxed, and he let go of me, and sure enough, back on the other side of the field, the redcoats were standing and watching, but making no move to come after me.

“And if they should take a notion to come,” said Solomon Chandler, “do we want to turn our backs to them?—or maybe to keep a cool head on our shoulders, since we are two to two, even odds, my lad, and a gun is a commoner, an equalizer, believe me.”

I stared at him now. He was a tall man, a full head taller than I was, and long in his arms and his legs and skinny as a starved crow. But it didn't weaken him, being skinny; I had felt his grip and knew that. He had a long face, a long hooked nose, a jutting chin, and two pale blue eyes, deep-sunk in their sockets. When he smiled, he showed a mouthful of broken yellow teeth, with wide gaps between them. He wore a provision bag over one shoulder, a powder horn, a bag of shot and a water bottle over the other, and he carried a rifle as tall as he was. His hair was snow-white, and altogether he was the most freckled man I had ever seen and possibly the ugliest.

“You don't know them!” I gasped, still trying to get back my breath. “You don't know them! You don't know what they did over there! We were standing on the common and they fired on us! They shot us down like dogs! They killed my father!”

“Ah, no—Jehovah damn them! Did they do that? Did they kill your father, your own blood?”

I nodded, and all my control went, and I burst into tears and put my face in my hands and cried like a little boy, full of shame and sick all through, but unable to halt my crying.

“Now that's the right thing,” said Solomon Chandler. “Let the tears run freely. Grief should not be denied. Cry until you are free of it, boy. The Almighty knows that you have reason for it. Don't be ashamed for me. I have six children and nineteen grandchildren, and each one of them is as dear to me as you were to your own father, may he rest in peace.”

I was able to stop then, and I was grateful to him, for as strange as his words were, they calmed me and soothed me—as if for the first time I actually realized that life would continue, and that my father's death and what had happened in our village did not mean the end of everything. Glancing across the wall, I saw that the two British soldiers were gone. Solomon Chandler was asking my name.

“Adam Cooper.”

“Adam Cooper. All right, Adam, my boy, suppose we walk a spell and put a mile between them redcoats and us, and then we'll just sit for a bit, and you will tell me what happened back there.” He reached into his waistcoat pocket and took out a silver watch. “Twelve minutes after nine,” he said, “and you've lost your youth and come to manhood, all in a few hours, Adam Cooper. Oh, that's painful. That is indeed.”

“I wish it was true that I have come to manhood,” I said bitterly.

“Give it time, Adam. Give it time.”

And then he set off with a long, brisk stride. I had to half-run to keep up with him. He set off westward, and for about a mile, we walked parallel to the Concord Road. Then we turned south into the woods, climbed a hillock, and came to a tiny, grassy glade, screened from every side by brush and wood. I had thought that I knew all the countryside hereabouts, but Solomon Chandler knew it better than I did, every field and fence and coppice. Once we were in the glade, he asked me whether I was hungry, and when I nodded, opened his provision bag and took out of it cold roast chicken, a piece of ham, bread, and a boiled fruit pudding. He spread a cloth on the ground, laid out the food, cutting it up so that I should have no hesitancy about helping myself, and then pressed me to eat.

I felt that it was wrong of me to be so hungry. I felt that it was sinful, in the face of all that I had seen and all that had happened; but after I had tasted the first bite of food, I ate as ravenously as a starving man. I suppose it was my hunger and the circumstances that made it so, yet the food tasted better than anything I had ever eaten. Between the two of us, we finished the ham and the chicken and the fruit pudding, washing it down with water from our bottles. Only some of the bread remained, and this Solomon Chandler wrapped carefully and stowed back in his provision bag. Then he stretched his legs and his arms and said to me:

“Now, Adam, confess that you feel a trifle better?”

I nodded.

“Life is potent, Adam. If it wasn't, you and I wouldn't be sitting here. You witnessed a mighty terrible thing, but men are clever when it comes to doing sinful and beastly things to other men, and what you witnessed was not the first time and it won't be the last either. But life has a special quality of asserting itself, and that's a very important thing to learn about, it is.”

“My father's dead. Talking like this won't bring him back.”

“That it won't, Adam—be sure of that. Nothing's going to bring him back. You know, laddie, when a young man like yourself first watches the death of someone close and dear to him, it's a bitter shock, it is. But if it was you lying out there on the common and your father out here, then there would be no consolation whatsoever, none at all that I could offer. The natural way is to let the old go, let the young live and taste life. Your father went too soon, but oh, my heavens, laddie, life is only a day, a long, long day, but that's all. I am sixty-one years old, and it's like yesterday that I was a boy your own age, and a year older when I shipped out of Boston Town to see the whole world, and then back to be married and raise my own, and then off to the French War—and all of it comes down to a moment. The Lord God Jehovah, He is eternal and timeless, He that was and is and always will be—but you and me, laddie, we have a little bit to do and we do it as best we know how, and that's just about as much as you can say for us or for your good father, may his soul rest. Now I have said enough. I could sit here and talk you deaf, dumb, and blind, I could. But I want you to talk to me. I want you to tell me what went on back there and just how it happened—all of it, how it began and then everything that transpired.”

He was not to be resisted, this old man, Solomon Chandler. He never raised his voice, and everything he said had a trace of apology in it; yet I found myself telling him every detail of the previous night, how the rider came to warn us, how we assembled on the common and how the British came. I left out none of it, nor did I attempt to polish it up and make us out to be heroes of any kind. I told him that so far as I could see, not one shot was fired from our side. I told him what kind of cowards we were, and how we ran as if the devil himself was behind each one of us.

When I had finished, he remained silent for a while, and I could see that he was thinking over all that I had said. Meanwhile, he had taken an old black pipe out of his pocket and a plug of tobacco just as black. Thoughtfully, he shaved tobacco off the plug and stuffed the pipe. I was wondering whether he'd kindle a fire to light the pipe, but after he had taken a draw or two on it, he put it back in his pocket unlit and unsmoked.

“Cowards, you were, Adam?” he asked at last.

“Yes—cowards.”

“Oh? I think you got something to learn, laddie, about the nature of cowardice and bravery. It takes no courage to fire a gun and to kill, merely a state of mind that makes killing possible. Such a state of mind does not come easily to decent folk. But we will see.” He rose to his feet and picked up his long rifle. “Come along now, Adam—if you're minded to throw in your lot with me.”

“I can't go home now.”

“Then come along, boy.”

“Where?”

“In good time—all in good time. You know where the Mill Brook forks?”

“I know the place, yes.”

“Well, son, there's a little pasture south of it where I imagine we'll find a few sturdy Middlesex lads. It's a long way ahead of us, and what's started ain't easily finished.”

We set off again, Solomon Chandler walking more slowly now, and we cut across the fields, over stone walls, and through bits of woods—but still more or less paralleling the Concord Road. North of us, we heard the sound of drums and the shrilling of pipes, faint at first but then clearer; and the sudden panic in me was eased by Chandler's hand on my shoulder.

“Easy, easy, boy,” he said. “Their music never hurt a living soul, and you just make up your mind to stroll along just as casual as if you was out walking with your lassie. If you have one now. Do you?”

I nodded.

“Tell me her name.”

“Ruth Simmons,” I whispered.

“Then that would be Joseph Simmons' daughter, him the smith back there. Am I right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Bless my heart. Now, do you know, Adam, the last time I set eyes on her, she came no higher than my kneecap. And what kind of lovers are you? Are you betrothed?”

“I'm too young to be betrothed.”

“Oh, bite your tongue with such words! How old are you, boy?”

“Fifteen,” I answered.

“Fifteen. Now in my own days, that was never too young for a betrothal, or for a marriage either; but we're a careful lot these days, and they say a lad should have this and that before he takes him a lady. Myself, I was married at seventeen years, and never regretted it—good heavens, no. And you're a big, upstanding lad. To look at you, I would have said you were seventeen at least.”

“Johnny Harrington was seventeen, and they killed him on the common.”

“Take your mind off such things now, Adam,” he said gently. “Don't worry the dead. Let them lie in peace.” We had topped a little hill, and there, half a mile to the north of us and plainly visible, was the highroad. His arm over my shoulder, Solomon Chandler paused there and pointed toward the long column of redcoats, stretching up and down the whole length of the road that was in our view. At this distance, they were like toy soldiers, small, harmless, and impersonal.

“Have a good, long look at them, Adam. It's a healthy business to regard what you fear. Look at it long and calm, and you will find that it calms you inside.”

I did as he said, and bit by bit, the panic in me worked out; my heart beat less strongly, and the awful, mindless fear of them began to subside. While this was taking place inside of me, Solomon Chandler talked on, his tone as chatty and comfortable as if we were sitting in Mother's kitchen and not out here in the open with the redcoats only half a mile away.