Traitor to the Crown The Patriot Witch (36 page)

“It'll be harder to do your bidding if I'm lying bloody on the floor,” Proctor said.

The officer stopped. “Half an hour—if the colonel has already crossed, you must send the horse after him.”

The boats were the quickest way across, maybe the only way. Once there, he'd have to find some way to escape the British and reach the colonial lines without being shot.

The officer was running out the door to rejoin his company on the road. He left the barn door open behind him. The cadence of drums drifted into the room, and then the cannons boomed again, echoing over the water.

Proctor toyed with the notion of saddling up the edgy horse, hoping it might throw its rider. Instead, he went to the third stall and stroked the neck of the mare. “How would you like to go for a ride?”

The horse shook her head as if she understood. In the next stall, the gelding shuffled restlessly and batted the stall door.

“Maybe next time for you,” Proctor said as he went to work with the saddle, double-checking each buckle and stay until he was satisfied with it.

When he was done with the work, the mare sidled up next
to him, expecting to be mounted. Proctor shook his head and took her by the bridle instead. “I better lead you to the boats—we don't want to get there too soon.”

The horse nudged his hand for a treat.

Proctor rubbed her muzzle. “I'll have to owe you a carrot.”

The strength of the horse lent Proctor power as they walked to the docks. The wounds on his arms throbbed, and his head still felt muzzy, his legs weak. Somehow he had to push all that down and keep on going.

It helped that the city was wide awake, with lights in every window and people lining the streets as if it were a parade. The closer he came to the battery, the more the road was packed, slowing his progress. Other boys led horses to other officers or ran forgotten equipment to ordinary soldiers. A plump young woman in an apron, red-cheeked from crying, walked alongside the troops, holding a newborn infant in her arms and encouraging him to say good-bye to his papa.

Proctor started asking for directions. “Where's Colonel Jack? I'm supposed to meet him at the boat.”

He repeated the question several times before a squat sergeant with a scar across his face answered him. “He's at the docks—they should be embarking now, if they haven't gone already.”

Proctor dallied just enough to give the boats time to depart. As he neared the water, the
boom-boom
of the cannons shelling Charlestown grew louder. Across the dark bay, the masts of the
Lively
lit up in orange relief each time fire jetted from her sides. One boom sounded when the cannons fired, and another when the shells hit, sending up debris and flames onshore. Even across the water, he could see fires spread from one wrecked home to another.

He fell into a line where he saw other horses, making his way down to the shore. Barges loaded with twenty-five or thirty soldiers pushed off and disappeared into the darkness; others came back empty but for the sailors rowing.

His turn came, and he stepped up to the boat. Soldiers pushed past him, jostling the mare in their hurry to board. Cannons boomed at the same instant, and she snorted, pulling away from Proctor.

A sailor in a striped shirt was supervising the boarding. He saw Proctor struggling to calm her, and yelled, “Who's her officer?”

“Colonel Jack,” Proctor said

“He's already gone over.”

“I'm supposed to take him this horse.”

“If he went over without one, he can do without,” the sailor said. He held out his hand to block Proctor, and used the other to wave the next group of soldiers aboard.

“If I don't get this to him, his lieutenant is going to come back and beat my hide.”

“It's your hide, not mine,” the sailor said, shoving a hesitant soldier forward. “Keep moving.”

The cannons boomed again and the sound of a great beam cracking echoed across the water.

“Please, sir,” Proctor begged.

One of the officers waiting to board stepped forward. “You better give him a hand,” he told the sailor. “I saw Colonel Jack's horse back up on the main road—it threw a shoe.”

The sailor tossed up his hands in submission and stopped the line, ordering the soldiers off the boat. “Keep her to the center and keep her still,” he ordered Proctor.

“Will do,” he said.

The mare had been transported by boat before, if only by ferry. She was hesitant to step aboard, but when Proctor backed her up and gave her a few steps' start, she hopped over the low side. The boat rocked, and he struggled to keep his balance. But she stood steady in the center as soldiers packed in around her.

“Push off!” the sailor shouted.

The mare snorted as the boat lurched forward onto the
water, but Proctor stroked her flanks and kept her calm. Maybe he was just keeping himself calm—getting to the other shore was only the first step in stopping the widow's massacre.

“That horse doesn't look like it fights anything, except to get into the oats,” said one man.

The young officer, who looked all of seventeen or eighteen, laughed. “It's for Colonel Jack. He'll need a comfortable horse to set upon, all gentleman-like, as we chase the rebels back to Concord.”

That brought a few laughs, and a group in the back of the boat shouted “Huzzah!” loud enough to make the horse snort and start forward, rocking the boat. The sailors shouted in protest, the men were shouted down by their fellows, and Proctor gripped the bridle firmly and patted her side, the way he would a plow horse after a long day.

The horse stayed calm for the rest of the ride, even when they passed within a few hundred yards of the booming guns of the
Lively
. They reached the shore, and the sailors were quick to unload Proctor and his charge. The young officer thrust out his hand as Proctor climbed ashore.

“Lieutenant Parry,” he said.

Proctor took his hand, too surprised to make up anything. “Proctor Brown.”

“You're no horseman—that beast must be the most gentle creature in the world, or it would never have come across for you so easily.”

He opened his mouth to answer and Parry laughed at him.

“Still, it shows good sense that you'd picked it for Colonel Jack. He needs a gentle creature. You, however, look like you're made for rougher work. Come call on me at The Grapes in a couple of days, after this rebellion's set to rights, and I'll find something for you in our unit.”

“I'm not sure—”

“Of course, but think it over,” Parry said. “It'll be a chance to see the world.”

With a grin, he was gone and yelling at men who were his age and older, some much older, directing them into their line.

Off to Proctor's left, the town of Charlestown burned in the morning's first light, columns of smoke climbing into the sky like ropes to heaven. Ahead of him, a long slope rose gradually from the water's edge to a peak that overlooked the river. The colonial redoubts, made of hastily thrown-up dirt, could be seen on the peak.

He tugged the bridle gently, pulling the horse's face closer to his. “This is it,” he whispered. “Ride like the devil for me, and there's a soft life and all the carrots you can eat until we get you back to your master.”

The horse nickered and bent her neck to nudge Proctor's hand and sniff his pockets.

“After we get to safety,” he said. He put his foot in the stirrup and pulled himself up into the saddle. Tugging the reins around toward the hilltop, he kicked the horse's sides.

The horse leapt forward and then promptly slowed to a walk. Proctor kicked her sides harder, but the more he kicked, the slower she went.

British soldiers began to look at him. “You there,” one shouted. “What are you doing?”

Proctor looked down. “I was commanded to deliver this horse to Colonel Jack. Do you know where he might be found?”

“Do I look like his bloody keeper?” the man said, striding forward.

The soldier next to him held him back. “Colonel Jack's unit has gone toward Charlestown to hold the left flank.”

“Thank you,” Proctor said, turning his horse in that direction without waiting to be dismissed. He could find a road from Charlestown to the top of the hill. If he got that far, he could make a break for it.

The closer they came to the sound of the cannons, and the haze from the fire, the slower the mare plodded.

“If I used you to plow, I'd still be breaking ground when it was time to harvest,” Proctor said. She was a good horse, strong, could probably pull a carriage all day at that same pace without tiring. It just wasn't the pace he needed.

He passed down the line of British regiments, wondering if it would ever end. There were thousands of men—thousands of the best-trained, best-fighting men in the world. As he passed face after face, some grim, some laughing, some angry, he wondered if the widow even needed her magic to help them win. He began to feel sick.

Then Charlestown was rising up in front of him—literally rising, as the fire turned it into a pillar of smoke. He would have to steal his chance to make it to the colonial lines soon.

Another cannon boomed. This time he was close enough to hear the whistle of the shell and feel the ground shake as it hit its target in the city. Another set of stone walls tumbled in a cloud of dust.

The mare didn't like that at all, and tried to turn back. “That's a good girl,” Proctor said, aiming toward the hill. “We'll be far away from the cannon if we go up there.”

Then hands were reaching up and taking the reins from him. It was the officer from the barn, now considerably less angry.

“Good work,” he said.

Proctor thought about pulling the reins free and making a break for it, but he knew it would be a losing gambit with this mare.

“Gentle is the word for her,” he said, dismounting.

“This is for you,” the officer said, and handed him a shilling. “We're moving cannons up to cover the road, so we can rake the colonials when they start to retreat. Report to the quartermaster over that way, and he'll find a duty for you.”

“All right,” Proctor said.

When the officer led the horse away, Proctor turned toward the hill. Without meeting anyone's eyes, he simply strolled past the British lines, which were still forming, and headed up the long slope. He could almost feel the guns aimed at his back—his stomach knotted and his knees felt rubbery.

He was less than a quarter of the distance when the shout went up, “Hey, who is that there?”

“Halt! You there, halt!”

“Shoot him before he reaches the rebels!”

With half a mile to go, he started to run.

The first musket cracked behind him.

More shouts went up, this time from the colonial barricade, as more muskets fired behind him. The balls buzzed past his ears, just like bees. The slope grew steeper just before the summit, the ground filled with rocks and roots and ankle-breaking holes. A ball smashed into the dirt beside him. When his hat fell off, he didn't look back for it—he could find another hat.

He reached the wall, thrown up hastily out of mud and logs, and rough hands reached out to help him.

Balls slammed into either side of him, kicking up mud and splinters. As he tumbled over the top, he saw musket barrels rising to reply.

“Hold your fire,” someone shouted. “Hold your Goddamned fire!”

Proctor looked up to thank his rescuers and fell back—skeletons and talking skulls, covered with a veneer of jellied flesh, packed all around him.

“But—” said one of the colonials.

“Don't argue with me,” the officer interrupted. His face was a skull with eyes like smoke trapped in ice and light brown hair tied back in a knot. “We've only got seven rounds per man. We'll hold our fire until it can do some good. If you can't follow that order, you need to take yourself home right now.”

Proctor sat, back against the wall, gasping. He fumbled
in his trouser pocket—one of the charms, if he grabbed one of the charms that Deborah gave him—

The muskets lowered and the men repeated the reasoning to one another, reassuring themselves of its wisdom.

—and his hand closed around something unexpected, the lock of Deborah's hair. He wrapped it around his finger, and, with his eyes closed to shut out the sight of the skeletons, pressed it to his lips, and said a silent prayer.
Let her healing heal me
.

The itching spread from his arms to his legs and belly, but the nausea, the weakness fled.

He opened his eyes and saw worried faces. Bright eyes. Ordinary, healthy flesh. The officer watched him, the same pale brown eyes and hair tied back in a knot, now set in a young man's face, with a hairline scar along one cheek. Breathing easier, Proctor slipped the lock of hair back into the same pocket.

There was a yelp and a small figure came tumbling back over the wall with something in his hand.

“You dropped this on the way in,” the boy said. He was about twelve, with a shaggy mop of hair and a big grin on his face. He handed over Proctor's hat.

Proctor dusted it off and put it back on his head. “Thank you,” he said. “What's your name?”

“Tobias—I'm the drummer.”

He reminded Proctor a little of Arthur. Or, if he thought about it, the fifer with the Acton minutemen, the one who taunted the Redcoats at Concord with his songs. Proctor reached into his vest pocket for the shilling the British officer had given him. Instead his hand closed on one of the lead charms.

He pulled the charm out anyway and handed it to the boy. “You've got my thanks, Tobias. You carry this for luck, and it'll see you through the day.”

The boy took the musket ball and rolled it in his hands.
If he saw anything unusual in it, he didn't say so, but he dropped it in his pocket with a thank-you-sir.

The leader held out his hand. “That was a brave run there. Who are you and how'd you end up on that side of the line?”

Proctor got to his feet and took the hand hesitantly—no new wave of nausea passed through, nothing made him sick. “Name's Brown—I'm a minuteman with the Lincoln militia, but then I got stuck in Boston. You the captain here?”

“Not as such. What were you doing in Boston?”